


Indigo

by Angelica_Bustle



Category: Original Work
Genre: Abstract, BDSM, Blood Drinking, Borderline Personality Disorder, Cannibalism, Death Rituals, Depression, Drug Addiction, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Epic Poetry, Erotic Poetry, F/F, F/M, Free Verse, Guilty Pleasures, Haiku, Hope, Illusions, Insomnia, Internal Monologue, Lolita, Love, Lust, M/M, Medication, Metaphors, Nature, Occult, Other, Poetry, Reader-Interactive, Religion, Ritual Sex, Secret Organizations, Sex, Slam Poetry, Sleep Deprivation, Social Justice, Spiritual, Symbolism, Truth, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:06:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 228
Words: 28,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27838825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelica_Bustle/pseuds/Angelica_Bustle
Summary: A collection of poems, verses, thoughts, feelings, opinions, dreams, experiences of mine, of the society or of people I empathise with.Why Indigo?Indigo is a colour of Intuition, Sentiment and Perception, opening the Hidden Eye toward a world unknown which shall be shared by the holder with those surrounding them. It seems that, although it can foresee the Future, discover the Past and sense the Present, this auric colour may inflict a Truth, Justice and Freedom seeking within the person affected by it - thus, the Art withdrawn from it can reflect not only upon the Universe, but also on the one being it.We could say, eventually, that Indigo is both Light and Dark; it is the Concrete, the Abstract, the Matter and the Dream, the cooling Spirit-Mind-Fire that has the world in its palms, but never dares to close them.Work also on Quotev and poemhunter.com.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	1. Black

**Author's Note:**

> Copyright © 2017 Angelica Bustle  
> The Archive Of Our Own user represented on this site as Angelica Bustle will use this pseudonym as the official name of the author and, therefore, owner of the copyright.  
> All rights containing author's poetry are reserved. No part of the material protected by this copyright may be reproduced or utilized in any form, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner. Failure to respect the mentioned rules will be reported.  
> I, the author, own the cover picture, the Photoshop and the graphical additions to it.  
> I, the author, do not make any profit off this publication, nor do I ask for it.

The crack of fire deafened  
the sound of your steps in the room.  
I turned my head and saw  
your feline movements,  
your smooth appearance,  
your eyes  
black.  
In the shadows,  
I slithered toward you,  
I smirked.  
My sneaky movements,  
my deviant appearance,  
my eyes  
black.  
Nothing happened.  
I came  
and tasted venom in my mouth,  
blood on my lips,  
crimson.  
It was foreign.  
I spit it.  
Hey, you!  
Hey!  
You...  
clawed them to the bone.  
You bit into their minds  
with confusion to infuse.  
You ripped their chests open  
and they were empty.  
I followed you through,  
for it was dangerous.  
They pressured me not to,  
for it was dangerous.  
Fools.  
And nothing happened.  
It was cold after  
the storm had passed with lightning.  
No fire.  
I looked into your eyes as you looked back.  
That was secrecy;  
watching over the people from your design,  
only I am my own.  
I followed you through  
and reached danger.  
The journey was mine, the destination...  
you.  
But nothing happened.  
Just...  
Black.


	2. Hustler

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first poem I have ever written

You took my heart  
and caressed it.  
You played with it;   
it was a game;   
I enjoyed  
playing with you too.  
You took my heart  
and covered it with a blanket.  
Its beat was music;   
I guess you own that too.  
I remember;   
I still see it, hear it, feel it, dream it;   
I still live  
it:   
small thumps in long fingers stand,  
large vessel left in my small hands.  
Yes, I did have yours,   
but it was unjust;   
I stole it;  
such a crime.  
In fear of trial though,   
I dared not touch your heart.  
I wore gloves.  
I dared not stain your heart.  
And now it's your complain  
that all's in indigo.


	3. Ignorant

Hyenas.  
In the beginning, there was one male.  
He was laughing by himself,  
all alone in his kingdom of riff.  
His servants were laughing too,  
in order to obtain Illumination, through bale, they thought.  
He then saw a female.  
She was just like him, but more;  
maneuvering him to please her.  
They started concocting crimes together.  
They were the King and the Queen.  
They aimlessly walked toward nothingness,  
committing  
theft;  
rape;  
war;  
murder.  
They liked sinning  
and saw it as chastity.  
But there was Someone in the dark,  
whom they had neither seen,  
nor heard,  
nor felt,  
nor anticipated.  
And they were being watched,  
and listened to,  
and followed.  
Hello, hyenas.  
Are you still laughing?


	4. The Judges

If you so desperately crave to judge me,  
out of blindness,  
out of fear,  
out of cowardice,  
then do it.  
Judge me.  
Accuse me.  
Sentence me.  
Execute me.  
I shall wait for your words to stab me  
in the back  
behind my back.  
But you know it is not true  
and They will always  
believe me,  
defend me,  
support me,  
protect me;  
and not you.  
You already are in Hell.


	5. Suspicious Scent

I am watching the flame.  
It's burning.  
A photograph is placed beside me.  
It's the cigarette.  
A long drag down my nostrils;  
I'm in;  
you're out.  
Two packs on the nightstand;  
dirty,  
stenched,  
subit,  
quaint.  
Veil's evading my rouge,  
whirling coal around my eyes;  
it's dancing throughout the chamber,  
like a phantom  
eloped;  
it's out.  
I sigh.  
Why are you contemplating me so?  
I do not smoke.


	6. Ode to the Blue Moon

A window, opened at the final curtain of the hall;  
it hints to the Empyrean.  
The stars are glinting more  
vividly with the Moon,  
a thin chalk line across the blackness.  
I am waiting.  
The Sun has set such a  
hazy time ago;  
He too is waiting  
the Return.  
I put my bare elbow on the sill,  
shivers through my finger under  
the right eye.  
A silver cape is covering  
Infinity.  
Snakes are biting their tails and  
I am waiting.  
Rays of indigo deliberate are shining upon the jungle.  
Hyenas' sights are being burnt and  
I still am waiting  
the Light to arrive anon.  
So I see It;  
It is Full.  
Partners know not of Its closeness.  
The Moment passes and yet...  
another one appears.  
There is no end  
to  
the beginning.  
I turn my head for one split and have  
the impression of Loss.  
But that simply lingers as what it means:  
an impression.  
The indigo is rising anew;  
no reflection on the water;  
only a dance of smoke above a mosaic mirror;  
neither mourning, nor warning.  
I am waiting  
the Passing,  
but am told  
it shall never come.  
The Moon, over the bis, is posing  
on the Throne, for once neighbouring the Sun.  
I try opening the window;  
no way to cross green to the crepuscular It.  
I haven't other choice, but to  
wait for the Moon.


	7. I Call You

I know every detail  
of your voice;  
each quirk and each moan or sigh of pleasure,  
of pain;  
The Man of One Thousand Voices  
I call you,  
for the mask worn  
shall never split,  
shall never slip,  
shall never fall;  
Tha Man of One Thousand Faces  
I call you,  
for at dawn, when you are content,  
there is translucency,  
and hence, when fear succumbs you, the sound changes to grave;  
it is as if you never were,  
as if you had no voice and no face at all;  
as if I were blind and deaf also;  
infectious laughter in the night midst,  
when the song is sung and  
that note  
is touched, caressed,  
and I recognize it,  
when I say you are the same  
as you have always been,  
but somehow I imagine  
you blush and turn  
your cheek to the Wall;  
I imagine  
you then smile and deny  
it;  
'I am not',  
you speak;  
Never do I ask for a name, an age, a photograph;  
only for reliance.

Do you not trust me?

One thousand voices linked to one thousand faces, but  
eyes still are the same;  
I imagine them;  
'I am not',  
you speak,  
while darkness covers you with a blanket and a scarf and  
while the seventh voice takes the truest's place;  
while one single tear escapes over my skin,  
dirtying it with sorrow and despair,  
forbidden to ever exist when God rejoices for you,  
forbidden when captivity in fear suppresses you no longer,  
while the drop of it burns  
the corner of my dried mouth,  
I laugh your toxic laugh, look toward you  
through the Wall;  
we aren't amused, but  
simpler it is to pretend - it needs to be kept  
alive;  
you are not;  
I lick my lips, cut my tongue on my teeth, just as you do  
every time an answer pours from hustle;  
I ignore myself and see  
only your face,  
hear  
only your voice,  
as you keep denying it with the same forced laughter,  
by cause of your awareness of the truth that  
I understand  
and that I repeat a lie for you:  
you are not;  
I've got one question then.

Who  
are you?


	8. Murder

She sees wounds  
while wandering through the mist.  
It is dull, and cold, and queer.  
She does not comprehend.  
Her mother kisses  
the tip of her fingers,  
coughing  
'I love you',  
her dark cheeks stained with darker shades,  
framed by hair a darker colour,  
and closing her eyes  
too dark  
to ever be accepted.  
Beside the crimson, an armoured man stands tall,  
with a shotgun,  
and a knife,  
and a helmet.  
He smiles at the little girl, beckoning her with  
a slow gesture of his hand.  
He cannot distinguish her face, although she approaches  
on her own.  
He cannot distinguish her eyes,  
so he stares some other way.  
'Who did this?', she questions,  
dirty strands blurring her vision, and her tears also.  
'Who did this?', she repeats.  
'A brave one did', he proudly grins.  
She stabs his fading spirit with hers, forcing him to look,  
spitting.  
'I'd say a coward.'


	9. Encounter

Haven't you conceived for a trice that  
I am not beguiling?  
That I desire you well and love and marbles?  
You see colours of purple stained on  
my hands, my semblance,  
you hear them in  
my voice and  
read them in  
my words.  
You deluded them and now  
put the blame on me.  
We collided, yet  
you assume I'm someone else.  
How dare you name me rascal?  
I have my limits.  
It seems you don't.


	10. Dark Windows

It was raining  
in the beginning  
of a farse that you call chaste.  
Coal cloaks were over crowns  
foreign from the gospel,  
and you wore white;  
so factitious  
under a parapluie  
to have shades  
and still smile.  
I was sorrowing with light at windows  
for them,  
since they perceived no stunt  
when bewailing in  
grief.  
And then,  
the foyer broke,  
a weir slap quelled  
futile, waste mourning,  
hence I went akin with a wet dusk in ashen as  
you came back.  
It is raining  
in the end.


	11. The Pretender

You delicately tiptoed with tact  
toward the ripper.  
You wore a smile  
tranquillizing  
for me to know that my care for you had made you safe;  
you'd not cut; I trusted you.  
Nonetheless, your fingers lingered  
threateningly close  
to the shine of the blade,  
and your eyes,  
vacant and dry,  
were full of sin's nothingness:  
a lie.  
I wouldn't have minded it then  
if it hadn't been for your  
act,  
as you took the knife,  
planted it from behind,  
and sealed it with  
a kiss.  
But you did not leave me behind, for you enjoyed  
coming back for another play, so you stayed and watched and  
never did say goodbye.


	12. Epiphany

It's passed a span.  
The Sol too soon has sunk and I  
discerned Mercurial over Muse' awning.  
Tides have chafed winds of you, and still  
you don't depart; the troops are muted.  
Audacity for loams to throb at the  
reckoning of war,  
while the Walls you built as sheath  
have now Children suffer.  
Yet we've prepared with weapons and with  
qualm,  
dismal to espy it is  
this  
that compels us fight,  
and prolong to charge the  
One that helps you stand.  
I am awaiting for a morn, when  
the Man, whose Age we're in,  
shall grasp sin tampers nature loathe.  
I do penance.  
Lord, thanks to Thee  
is my fortune.


	13. Equivoque

Fancies of crimsoned hails and  
lucent casts  
have chivied my spirit,  
whereas  
twenty an' eight a moon is meager for a  
scare.  
My breath's brief, genuinely, since I discard  
in odds of you and  
have no sinew that you vault, but  
is his as well?  
I see your simper in vain shed, as  
relics lapse you,  
mild.  
There are no queries you need ask, let me  
filter:  
Why is Token with venin shot?  
Why is Craven their tusks seething?  
Why is Anonymous revealing?  
Is there miasma in my tongue at all?  
Here, your echo.


	14. Scream

Flame ablaze behind your shade,  
cusp of an amaranthine lane,  
leaves on your cheeks.  
A quondam raven peers a place with no name,  
as you're elapsed in a Bell of Gardens.  
Obscures of ebon and puce copper enrich your lamps Cimmerian  
falsified in a cover meant to scare;  
queer I don't sense threat converging,  
but them, whom apocryphal Fate has chosen to annul  
the Cross,  
and plant a descent Moon coated in  
Blood.  
I summon your intent of hegira,  
when Towers have moldered, like did  
your animus.  
Four zephyrs are comeuppance for them, one other abstracted  
by spiral plethora,  
and the humans hungering for humans  
are being swollen by our land  
cleaved and dithered.  
It is now the seventh epoch of Autumn  
and I can descry'ou anew, since odds have come to  
you  
for a Rising Ankh of Crux.


	15. Woods

Tended berth of ashen sleet hovering  
piceous fronds on timbers afrost-asleep,  
is there any sound here?  
Yes,  
axe cuts crude sod and  
luster chants a hum of pyre,  
thus is night.  
The comfort of the precip whistles marly  
through the whiff:  
'I regret nothing.'  
Shall the cracks of imbued weald disturb me,  
I'll stay lulled,  
and let dulcet woes brush the snowdrops,  
raw relish.  
I regret nothing.


	16. The Pupil X

Oh, Child!,  
who are you,  
elapsing the couloirs apart, in ire and in doldrums,  
your clothing rotten on your wales,  
your bag shallow and laden against your crisp back?;  
where are you?  
No scholar has seen you for some time and  
no mate of yours cares to - they are the bruisers.  
With eyes sealed and skin lead, you awol the mass of crows,  
but entice the vulture;  
he has no mind and no soul, he is a vortex of nought;  
his infect grasps lynch you and your eyes are just wide.  
We can see you now.  
Did we find you?  
We did not.


	17. Plato, Misread

Enamoured with the soul  
is most my polestar can gift,  
as your red, enticing and contoured,  
's aught but a fated bloom, which I'll neglect  
once I depart  
further aeon, further  
shed, and further,  
much further  
moon;  
I shan't corral another in blithe absolution, but I'll stay  
beneath.  
Enamoured with the sheen  
that you share when you lip, and move, and  
that your lancets dim hold.  
'No sentiments'  
they tell I have, for I spiel no shreds of me for shreds of you;  
I simply cohere and not coerce,  
my possessions are of  
passing nature,  
same as you.  
You ken me not, Love,  
but I see your Leave and your Return,  
circle knotted in a twist, sobriety forgotten:  
You.  
Oh, you ken me not, Love.  
That is but all that I have  
and all that I have is what  
I tell you.


	18. Humility of the Jackals

Your goD has fallen, the one with domino;  
what are you to do?  
You ended life when Life was formed and  
spitted when you climbed the throne of  
It.  
Tributes you expect from me when you  
stole  
hopes,  
emptied minds repeating loops of  
'Enough with Me';  
thefts from Poor and fortunes for yourselves, Machiavellians,  
all aquaint the dictum but never speak.  
One chance for murder and I'd shout in streets for all my Loves;  
ah, but you are docile now and smiling.  
I deem that molds us in foes.


	19. Uncommitted You

How bordered is your mind, uncommitted  
to a soul or a place or a hope.  
Concocted scope this is, although youn't certain,  
as expected.  
Cursory leers through bleary cheaters and  
two words  
that never can stay very:  
'I leave'.  
Or  
'I live'?  
Fear of reason or burden.  
Indulgent I ought not be, for I've been deceived by most  
with sorries and with kisses  
soiled in opis that I tasted; there is none  
to trust.  
I shall leave and I shall live.  
I am committed to myself.


	20. No

You deserve no word of disgrace.  
Not even that are you worthy of.


	21. Smoking Burn

Mind a fire cooling thoughts  
of morals and of truths.  
I have heard you speak  
in odds to those who have no sound caught in their hearts.  
I have heard you weep  
when just was nought and...  
I have felt your hands  
gripping  
the life in the burn, and  
freezing  
me.  
I have got you then  
and now.


	22. The Ordinance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On The Ordinance 13, an ordinance bill proposed by the Romanian Government in 2017 that asked for the pardoning of certain committed crimes; hundreds of thousands of people gathered to protest against this ordinance in the capital city

If you release  
daemons in chains  
and baptize them  
freed  
after sentenced for taking,  
then you're all fools.  
If seeing one million a  
light of the people  
leads to them boycotted  
mad  
after besetting them,  
then you are doomed.


	23. Dream, Awaken to... (Vis, Trezit la...)

... Serendipity. You did, you do, you shall, you  
(... Serendipitate. Tu ai, tu da, tu vei, tu)


	24. Insomniac

Lid drooping after you, chasing  
the nerve of the dream, the yen.  
Free spiral down drowned with fear, from radials pained  
I am in my midst and mind.  
A lash has bent over my iris and  
truth  
was too Orphic to rest.  
I am waiting for clearance, I am waiting  
as always passive.  
Imagine of a holding, I reckon a reality, but  
you choose the game old, eere to b'known.  
You couldn't sleep either.  
Am I right?


	25. Drunk in You

Love will die,  
what a sad desire  
of those vindictive and with shame,  
they have not yet seen the sprinkler in the water  
that is not.  
A slap and a laugh, I atone for nothing,  
your blame is forgiven.  
The hair blears me now, sober but still,  
as mind wrestles with you,  
a hymn.  
Catch the falling snake, your teeth are seething,  
bite  
the haze with jars.  
This is one of those days when I see your eyes a blur and  
you're looking at me.


	26. Silence

For what is there to say  
in a language I don't speak?  
You are listening for naught,  
so am I,  
hunting for a glimpse of a sign,  
a response, we converse,  
all gets lost  
in translation.  
You call, I confere,  
you twist facts,  
with diversion  
so surreal  
yet no one seems to get it.  
I am listening for naught,  
and you are silent,  
so very silent,  
and in silence you consume  
all sound, all movement,  
until there's nothing left to hear.


	27. I Am Not.

I cannot  
sense menace bordering;  
I cannot touch  
my dreams as well  
as a body so distant,  
nonexistent.  
I wish a simple love, but tortuous on all faucets,  
I cannot trust, yet I believe;  
whom? I hault my chances by two to ten grand of false respect,  
I worth the sky empty for my deeds, I have no more fakes clung...  
I drink from glasses filthed with mud and  
powder storched in wine and fuzz;  
sugar drooling from my mouth, my throat aching in its sweetness  
I cohere a void of warmth, as my desires contain cold  
hands, cold  
naught.  
No chocolate can I taste any longer,  
I cannot taste at all  
a nauseous taste of illusion, that keeps me floating and in pain;  
my head pounding with your thoughts, with his, with hers,  
I am left here all alone and I am talking  
to myself;  
I am not who I was and shall,  
perhaps for I cannot be.


	28. Смрт

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Смрт (Smrt) = Death (Serbian)

The sheets are burning  
over a naked soul sold to the bed,  
empty, neated.  
A sour scent touches a decorative pillow,  
soft cotton on my transparent cheek, but I cannot lay.  
The call of a final curtain  
over the window, beyond it  
is the one more will I have before  
...  
I wish a joy of liberty, ray of neon that I fixed above me;  
broken is how it is, as this is what I live; I am real in a noun of  
imagine, false flesh and made-up proof;  
Who wants to live forever,  
when they kill and resurrect  
each time schemes dissolve?  
I do not accept.  
Yet, I scratch the skin with a blow, I purse  
my lids for sleepless struggles, I see the void of indigo.  
I do not accept,  
do not touch me, do not hold me, do not love me;  
I am  
consumed.  
Who lives forever  
anyway?


	29. Never Trust in Hugs

Mutable sight toward red strands on blonde disgust,  
all that's my view holds fear.  
Embracement of the act, whether it's absolute or insolute,  
I am unaware.  
Run in two directions, you are rent and slit.  
I cannot trust, but  
you believe  
that I would  
every moment your hands grip.  
Run back and run  
fast to White,  
with long halls and  
whispered crawls to void of moist,  
which your carnal mind wishes.  
No emotion, no feel you do  
for me, at least, or for you.  
I never trust.


	30. Oh, Botheration

Betrayal, betrayers, you know what you've done.  
Hunting long shift and preparing for war  
with me, I know  
you sense the danger.  
Criminal I'm not, I cannot steal what you don't own,  
as there's no 'what', only 'whom', but you treat this such.  
There is no person, only possession.  
Poison you're trying to do me, how sad  
your world is.  
The only goal to be the shift  
and without it to be void.


	31. Dead Dream

What have you done?  
You made up a promise and yet  
you've broken it.  
Now they are mourning you again.


	32. Belated Eve

I discover me in the sand,  
by the sea, an ocean of beryl and teal  
waves of dimmed light toward the shell  
in which you cache.  
Nips star your coral, jarring  
'Freedom!',  
as I imprint the skin with  
the sole of my foot and  
I look at the tempest approaching,  
wind tickling the stones  
silver and gold  
that have stayed since you left; but I don't any longer need them,  
for I am liberated  
with you along the shore of flames foretelling the obscure.  
The Globe chaperons us,  
as I take you in my palms and kiss  
the water.  
I am impatient, impatience is vice:  
He is Emperor and Time is His tool;  
He comes lower to our home;  
a mirror of green blinds me, but you are immune,  
accustomed to beauty, you too watch Him and imitate His ways;  
you shine with chastity and virtue,  
marching forward in rain and letting it complete its  
swallow;  
I lose  
you once again, yet you turn and ask me to come also;  
hence I do, but I forget how to swim.  
Nevermind. I've made myself a dream  
anyway.


	33. Lillies for Them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Constantin Brâncuși's sculpture works in the memory of fallen war soldiers

The brume musters above domes  
and fields covered in cinder.  
Coil umbras marshal forward into the coppices,  
into the timbers which serve as aides and  
there patiently wait for peace.  
You contradict yourselves.  
Fathers, where do you send them?  
For they have nothing yet to acknowledge and listen to only you,  
you,  
who are not gallant as to chaperon, hence yell just.  
Brothers, worms crawl at your feet;  
the Raven awaits you among groots,  
on a Column of Pyramids infinite,  
the end of a Gate, a Path, and a Table of Twelve and One.  
Mothers, why do you weep,  
when your cries cease in face of your beloved?  
Why do you send them  
to hamlets with parched lawn and  
no Sun,  
no dawn?  
Children, why do you have lilies on your chests?


	34. Chimera

I hit my finger in the lancet,  
but I gulp from your liquor, doc. My finger is nothing.  
I wake up from a numb dream  
with a mug on my face and with  
a right boot on my left foot.  
I start laughing, but my sour tongue hurts my mouth with truth,  
for it exists.  
So I take once again your prescription  
\- oh, how you have helped me with the countenance of cure,  
blessings and ovations to you and your merit, thank you! -,  
expecting the pain to freeze as it would, but  
not heal, how it should.  
There is one problem though, doc. Now I cannot feel at all.


	35. You Do Not Kill, You Cast Stones

Adrift kin depraved of love  
for home that bore you, for it that raised  
a mind so wise, a hand so wide,  
why do you throw this blasphemy our way?  
You do not hymn  
other lands of grey blight and empty streets,  
you refugees from higher mountains and clasped leas  
of ambush and of grain, the Black once prized now filthed.  
No, you only live.  
You do not kill,  
as choice is none's, you do not weep,  
but cry with colors when your pride rots. You do not kill - they,  
whom you by blindness hailed,  
who have less concern for you than you,  
who indulge in ghastly oaths and frauds against  
the Golden - has it ever? -, they, just they  
are evil,  
never you.  
Never do you work  
your palms,  
and not your brains.  
Never do you stink of sorrow and  
return with ravished hearts, yet stand consoled with fury  
for Here.  
No, never you.  
You do not kill, you cast stones.


	36. Never Home

Never home have I come  
alone,  
as the gloaming leaks throughin the shades of vert  
leaves.  
Never home have you even known,  
wanderer;  
you drift with swollen feet across cement open and  
cherish loss of life and placement.  
Happenstance, allege all you, it is that made you amble,  
not fear of aught or run from marrow.  
You have neigh a course well eaten  
of heart,  
you are famished. Tell me if my home  
pleases you so, by cause I could share joice with many, but  
you claim none. You only maim.  
Never home have I come  
after you.


	37. Mis-

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For my father

Once I was divulged a guile;  
I umpired you.  
Ague I discerned and was lured by whimsical colloquy and  
vying scrutinies.  
Abandon is what I viewed;  
lack of caring,  
lack of loving,  
lack of presence,  
lack of you.  
But now is today and not aeons that passed,  
I sense you back;  
a woman I condemned is hence cleansed,  
your favour is gotten.  
I have missed you dearly.


	38. Ema

Drinking wine with buttered garlic  
warmed in an oven small in the kitchen  
at night,  
I see you under the table, your hair ripping,  
your tongue pierced with passion.  
Worrisome, you glance out the window,  
cold air blowing in your mind, you caress  
my soul, your sweet cheeks smiling at  
the picture of you in  
red and blue,  
you dream.  
Thank you.


	39. Ugly

I don't like me.  
I have eyes of dust, mouth grey flower I eat;  
cheeks... of rotten flesh, hair a drench,  
flowing down mephitic chassis  
flawed with marks  
of too much and too little  
ecstasy from crystal glasses with liquor,  
my breaths too long, too...  
rare.  
I hate me.


	40. I Am Here.

Strange columns of a doctrine  
short and sharp, a deceit anew  
I thought.  
Many a time have I wondered if  
a sweep and a caress, a graze  
have been more than a crisp blur, meant as illusion.  
My mind is my own, as I am not God, and neither is that  
whom I...  
Hence I chose a demeanor to save me from pain, and yet  
I've fallen more wounded.  
An escape from the end, a dream I concocted was and shall be  
my only demise,  
for you have been here, no matter their thoughts, due to  
the truth  
of a Blue Moon and a Snake.  
Eons of laughter  
in the name of just has brought us front with a Mischef  
that can only cause a ramble of Bustle as  
some stones, mere stones, are meant to depart us.  
I dare not erase  
the memory mine, which holds only proof insignificant to me,  
a proof of cold touches and trembling unitings,  
your cheeks so smooth, so sharp to frame an edgy smile,  
a smirk of deception, once another caught in me,  
your lips sealing no longer my silence, I am screaming, and  
your fingers, lithe and perceptive, hold me in place,  
you're afraid that I'd leave,  
your eyes, oh- those are the only which, in a split moment,  
could ever make me believe,  
although...  
Sometimes I still think them a dream;  
but they're not.  
Come back, come back to me!,  
a desperate yell of loneliness and hollow crowns I wore,  
a mewling of sorts from the pit of my soul, sold by itself to an  
inhuman other.  
Trading is seen as a treacherous pact,  
two opposites are awaiting for me to retrieve them a treasure,  
in change for your Life, and your Love, and your Freedom.  
I am sorry, I'm begging forgiveness, I've learnt nothing from you,  
no mistake was ever discerned through my voided spirit.  
Though, I am asking, for that single sentence you mouthed,  
the only I shall care for when  
we kiss, we hug, we love, we die.  
Please, say it again.

'I am here.'


	41. I Lie

I  
have never sipped you.  
Those skims you stole, the tongue you swept,  
they were all lies I lied for you, I killed for you  
the laugh that met my lips, the lips you slit;  
have you not?  
I have not  
cared ever of your grin, I never shared it,  
no combing have I made with my strands  
upon your funnel, your  
hips, fingers, your  
heart,  
a slithering fragrance, which I have  
not  
inhaled, exhaled,  
while mooningly glancing toward  
your gems, your eyes, your voids,  
those that I shan't ever remember.  
I have never your name whispered, hummed,  
screamed in your decay, or mine,  
no.  
I have never even heard your name;  
never have I known you, and thus  
I  
have never loved you.


	42. Sanatorium

I remember you from my dreams,  
Dear Man;  
you used to brush and smooch and call me  
all the visions.  
But now I see you with my eyes,  
hear you with my ears,  
feel you with my skin and  
know you with my soul,  
yet I kiss you not.  
Impossibilities so tender that I  
nearly cry,  
but then you would exist and be departed.  
I much prefer you here and ærial,  
since alone I cannot stay.  
So either strap me to the bed and torture me to reach the truth,  
or else just stop there and confess that  
I am right and they are liars.  
But why bother with mysteries unsolved? -  
\- I know I'm mad; I'm born in madness.


	43. Sleeping Mary

Thin framed bottle you're to us,  
a sheen of truth toward their schemes, deceitful  
in your way of stump,  
you ken your wants, you do not lie.  
A hand of help beckons us faster  
away from icon lacking mirth.  
And you enchant with your eyes closed, claiming  
you know all and we should listen.  
I trust, at last, you, drift divine  
in bewaring secrets of nature.  
You glance my way and ask my needs,  
then speak the foresight of your sál,  
listen:  
you have fallen in this world  
for us to share your wisdom.


	44. I Abandon Sentiment

I care not for sweet endearment, emotion of the lost.  
I'm dissolving in the water depth of ale, fall of mocking  
and of trust that I shan't own.  
Climbing down the spiral stair, clearing of a truth,  
what is there to discover,  
what pointless love to share with that  
who may die in Death's old hands,  
who'll become a fruitless traitor,  
a Serpent of the Tree,  
a dual?  
What smoke do I inhale each morning, when I sleep the life's  
cured wound,  
from a dream of clearest air,  
I'm smoking its remains.  
I wish to leave and stand here leaving.  
But what is there to leave?  
There's nothing.


	45. Slipper

Lonely does it halt on the  
rug of an unlived room,  
chambers hollow and with greys  
of whiffs kept still, of cheap perfume,  
rug of enlightened entrance to  
a hall.  
Moan of showers someplace else,  
the suite is empty, full of smells,  
on the doorstep, by the table  
to the bed,  
there's the money.  
Sweet campaign of profit's carn,  
the slipper's lonely,  
lost on rugs.


	46. The Muck

Fuck  
the world's most rageous fear, the doom of truth,  
the naught,  
the vine.  
Fuck conformity  
in its essence, I clarify the resonance  
of sumbre drops, soothing rain to cleanse my skin,  
contemplating the contemporary  
absence.  
I cannot fall  
asleep, sleep's less  
and less  
each day,  
but still I fall  
in void.  
Perhaps I chase it.  
Fuck connection  
that's not here,  
I don't connect with blood or spirit,  
I am vastly the expense of thefts and killings and of sacrifice,  
the Death.  
I am not dead, but I'm not living.  
Fuck the merchants' way of speaking, purchase of words and  
calloused touches.  
Fuck  
the love that's not been given,  
I am consumed by remorse fails,  
I do not feel or hurt for longer  
than minute passes of remains.  
In my bottomless defense for bleary letters,  
decay's slumber's drool on weary  
mouths and tragedy's old brains,  
I fuck the corpse that I discovered  
just as mine is deadly near.  
Cigar's burn on my left breast, I hunger for a lush of saint,  
a cooling draft of non-reason,  
I'm wanton of drowning  
my existence, lungs still churning.  
I shall sleep when I am dead.


	47. Enchanted Forest

I step on overstepped ores  
courteous  
with trace of launched hint, I step  
over ale's waiver and shushed depth, roots of slither tongues  
that speaken in their blanche secret,  
soft,  
hushed,  
caressed,  
I swim  
through waves trembling and commanding my  
still complete.  
I do not think, for I'd find meaning,  
I keep turning, I am burnt with cold air's hums of visions,  
hues azure grey descend my dreaming, indigos're far'n clearance,  
where my mission lies finit: a glowing woman, The Enchantress,  
whispering the bounds of spell, a snake scepter in her right hand,  
her left one holding Their Cross;  
I transcend.  
Eyes half-closing, head downed back, a hitch'f redemption,  
the raw cinched in clot and coitus  
amongst'rees unkept of tender and of Lo, exhalation of name  
foreign to all  
but to myself.  
I step quite further, sit on grass, await resonance of wiles' life  
as new.  
I fall clear soil and rush in ointment, the lagoon defiling  
morning's beau on my balmed hide.  
Bewildered do I sink in deeper,  
smoother,  
and exhale bis aloft.  
Time's not here, it's obscure rays once more in sight,  
crimson blood smeared onto skies  
of Moon and Lucifer that dies.  
Recollection of the Dagger, you hold near to my curved neck,  
through the lashes I view glints, smirk beckoning me in water's  
nudity alone.  
Oh, Enchanter.  
What am I to do with you?  
I moan, I sigh...


	48. Devianation

You mount at desk's plaint, long lap now  
swaying,  
school chemise crumpled awning for  
bare shoulders and hips, yet  
your knees art exposed  
in invite of cloy incense  
to predator sights' hunger, I kiss  
your foot sole,  
caught in mid-air.

Morn's light consuming  
your pyre dreads' locks thick, the glasses  
you wear complainant's reflection, you  
put down the book, hunch up your lip,  
and emit the laughter of  
sin.

Ache do I for those pains devouring,  
youth nymph.


	49. Chocolate Croissants

I have often pictured you  
resting by the window  
with a cool sheet wrapped about your slim frame,  
looking outside with a tremor in your eyes, either from hope,  
from longing,  
or from thy syrup melancholy - an emotion that seems t've been  
consuming me ever since you intruded my dreams, my  
lost trace of thoughts;  
and then you'd smile,  
the rose of your bud colouring and your small fingers tight  
around the cotton, relishing in its softness; you'd glance at me  
for one split second,  
and lushly grab at the mug  
laid waiting and forgotten on the paltry table separating us  
with cocoa coffee unspeakably brushing your upper lip,  
caressing your skin and luscious droplets gathering all my focus  
onto the trail your presence has left behind  
the slowly tortured margins of beige porcelain, its smell  
captivatingly alluring and  
devouring  
with raw sweetness bid to your chocolate croissants;  
I'm begging you: Let me take a bite.


	50. Catharsis (Slobodan)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

Your smile - brisk nips enshroud me and,  
as a spiral toward nothingness, constant in  
contratiempo,  
attraction to you, bell jar scathing.  
Any odd?

(Zâmbetul tău - fiori reci mă cuprind și,  
ca o spirală către nimicnicie, mereu în  
contratimp,  
atracție spre tine, clopot de sticlă nimicitor.  
Are rost?)


	51. Glass

You fill a glass with pure muck whiff,  
I gulp it down and drown in it,  
somebody help me to the bottom.

I drink my life with a straw  
smoke it through a cigaro


	52. Flower

Dear petal, dear sweetling perfume,  
I confide in your presence and never water you to bloom,  
I let you perish and submit  
into soil that's rot and dry,  
I never bring you down the light,  
nor do I permit you sight of cool,  
but I evermore cut off your leaves, your blues and all your yellows,  
I nie simply stare at you and sigh, sniff and cherish you,  
I always let you die.


	53. Visions of a Tourniquet (Viziuni c-un pansament)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

I stand on the diagonal of an absurd pit and an illusionary field.  
The dry-grass carpet is still crude, golden humid of the soil,  
awaiting me to step its border, either low or in the high.  
But diagonal I prefer always to pass, as I'm an indecise creature, with lusts  
many lurking at every stone that  
fails:  
a lust for life, a lust for death of hazard mind, of  
ravished flesh by idea and by dream.  
You care to join, oh, wonderful breeze, come from salty fars,  
sea storms with its approached shore by  
the sound, clear,  
of forgotten cold chords;  
you care to join, like a tourniquet for a paper scratch,  
remained not dry at any whiff - much I wail for naught;  
only if you were in here, in now, for my thought alone  
for long is gone to a void and isolation, toward  
an image  
and no else.

(Stau pe diagonala între un hău absurd și o pajiște iluzorie.  
Covorul de paie este fraged, umed auriu al pământului,  
așteptându-mă să îi calc hotarul, fie jos, fie sus.  
Dar diagonala o prefer mereu, fiindcă sunt o ființă indecisă, cu pofte  
multe pândind la fiecare stâncă ce  
se surpă:  
pofta vieții, pofta morții unei minți tulburate, unei cărni năucite de idee și de vis.  
Apari și tu, o, boare minunată, venită din larguri sărate,  
furtuni de pe mare cu malul ei apropiat de  
clarul sunet  
al unor uitate-acorduri reci;  
apari și tu ca un pansament pentru o zgârietură de hârtie,  
rămasă sensibilă la orice vânt - mult mă plâng  
pentru nimic;  
numai de-ai fi apărut în aici, în acum, căci gândul meu  
demult e dus spre-un vid și-o izolare, spre  
o imagine  
și-atât.)


	54. Draught of Absolution, Medicine for Life

Bring me all the plants, I say,  
start with the cocoa beans.  
I shall eat a salad then,  
rich in sweet'n'cream.

I prefer this funnel obscene of forgetfulness and constant losing,  
as my books, they are not clean, they're maddening, revealing.

Let me for once have my bones dried, and my lungs no longer breathe, let me  
with my insides crying for release.  
I shan't be better, I'll not be well, I just wish for my crowned bliss  
of astral sight, of naught and shallow  
contempt as I drown in smoke, in fig, in vine.

There is no end to one whose end is nigh.


	55. Sweet Suite

Oh, the rooms with clouded windows,  
precious rims transcending walls of brick,  
the ghosts of wars in cold valleys, icy woods,  
wolf black observing our spirits;  
we stand still and wait and wail and then  
we rejoice, then  
we drink, we drown, we laugh,   
our laughter hoarse from screaming, we rejoice.  
I found we amongst some stones,  
the fourteen and seventeen,  
and after I simply cherished  
chocolate and peanuts and our astral functions  
of souls and of minute moments' breath.  
Cheers, my friends, ah!, cheers!


	56. The Sickness

There's an ache contorting me, my  
flesh is ash to become, to turn  
by burnings, the flame  
of a hunger  
that destroys.  
It eats at the soul, the moral of the brain,  
stealing  
its insides for selfishness's neigh cries.

I cried for it and lusted  
for a womb's devourment  
in the bones, the nerves, the spirit  
consumed.

I consumed it.  
Now I'm nauseous.


	57. Resolved

Problems were what problems are: they're lies;  
we cheat our minds with words and phrases,  
we build our worlds with walls and fences,  
we die,  
knowing the untruths and of the terrors,  
the fears that kill  
our souls.  
I myself disown my mind:  
I never sleep;  
I never cry  
my thoughts to my mother, poor heart,  
who loves me always and always pries  
to keep me warm, and safe, and nigh.  
I never sleep, I never die.  
I dream of life instead and lie.


	58. A Shoe (Un Pantof)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

A poor man walks barefoot on the deserted street.  
Either male, be it woman, they wear their furhat,  
either rabbit, be it fox,  
on the head covered in blood.  
A poor man walks barefoot  
and alone, looks for  
a shoe made of snakeskin.

(Un om sărac merge desculț pe strada pustie.  
Fie bărbat, fie femeie, își poartă căciula de blană,  
fie de iepure, fie de vulpe,  
pe capul plin de sânge.  
Un om sărac merge desculț  
și singur, caută  
un pantof din piele de șarpe.)


	59. Oblivion (Incurie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

A virgin girl steps on a leaf  
\- dry, dead -  
and trips over a broken stone  
\- it too, dead.  
In the soil dirtied by the light of the virgin,  
the girl weeps, gets not why  
she hears howls.  
Around, there may coyotes be  
\- she has killed the hyenas by now -,  
so she stands, dusts herself and cuts her sole.  
Ken ye not, beautiful person, of coyotes, that they hunt you?

(O virgină fată calcă pe o frunză  
\- uscată, moartă -  
și se-mpiedică de-o piatră spartă  
\- și ea, moartă.  
În țărâna murdărită de lumina virginei,  
fata plânge, nu-nțelege  
de ce-aude urlete.  
Poate sunt coioți în jur  
\- pe hiene le-omorâse -,  
deci se scoală, se scutúră și se zgârie în talpă.  
Nu știi tu, frumoasă persoană, de coioți, că te vânează?)


	60. Silvertongue (Limbă-de-Argint)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

Your face appears from behind the door, tall,  
reminds me of a shadow,  
of the dark in files of books, of  
the whiff old of wet wood,  
burnt perhaps by you.  
I have found ye, Silver!,  
as just your tongue, foreign,  
quick speaks on a dead tone.  
If only I'nderstood you, thief,  
I'd love you.

(Chipul tău se ivește din înalta ușă,  
îmi amintește de o umbră,  
de întunericul filelor de cărți, de  
vechiul miros de lemn ud,  
ars poate de tine.  
Te-am găsit, Arginte!,  
căci limba ta numai, străină,  
viu vorbește pe-un ton mort.  
De te-aș înțelege, hoațe,  
te-aș iubi.)


	61. The Dust

There is an ash coming from thy bones,  
there is a smell, a dirt.  
I can whiff it off of thee, it is a wonder  
shed by skin, by smoke, a decayed  
decoy by you.

I would if I could, but I can't, so I don't.


	62. The Scavenger (Necrofagul)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

I eat soul mine and hope it perishes  
with the body.  
I wear my crown of cracks ripped  
off the life that I once lived  
and is dead.  
Perhaps the other day I had a view,  
but I've not moved.  
My fangs are soiled in blood, in  
retched flesh  
and in my bones.  
A black smoke evades as  
putrid tar  
from my mouth that spake with mind and I  
spit it, then I drink,  
for I'm thirsty.  
I eat soul mine and hope it perishes.

(Eu mănânc sufletul meu și sper să nu mai fie  
nici trupul.  
Îmi port o coroană de crăci smulse  
din viața ce-o trăiam  
și-i moartă.  
Poate ieri aveam unde să privesc,  
însă am rămas pe loc.  
Colții mei sunt mânjiți de sânge, de  
carne râncezită  
și de oasele mele.  
Un fum negru iese ca  
o smoală putredă  
din gura mea ce-a grăit cu minte și  
îl scuip, apoi îl beau,  
căci îmi e sete.  
Eu mănânc sufletul meu și sper să nu mai fie.)


	63. Song of Sleep

I have lost more than I won in this life,  
I have lost all my good friends.  
Oh, sweet folks | of the east coast | on the seaside,  
I have lost ye all again...

I have lost more than I owned in my life,  
I have known bloodshed and sin.  
My sweet tooth | and my drink | are all I could bring  
Along with me on this ship.

'ere I have met | a girl in distray,  
And a man whose purpose | in life's sail away,  
Then I saw ye, | commanding  
One hundred swords of gold  
To soak in our foes' chests.

'ere I have tasted tobacco,  
On yer lips and yer tongue,  
And the wine ye so love,  
In this time of war.  
So  
I drank and I swallowed  
A gunshot for ye,  
A bullet for pride, and for Vane and yer tears.  
I choose a death, than waste  
My last breath | on saving those  
Who shall die with me.

I have lost more than I dreamt in my dreams,  
I have lost all my true friends.  
I have gained a heart though,  
And it too stopped beating:  
I have lost my love again...

[Choir:]  
There's no end to one whose end is nigh,  
There's no prayer for a green flash,  
There's no fear to feel | when the noose is near,  
There's no death at the end of the rope.

I have lost my love again,

I have lost my luv again,

I have lost my life again...


	64. Mimosa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mimosa pudica is a plant whose compound leaves fold inward and droop when touched or shaken, defending themselves from harm, and re-open a few minutes later.
> 
> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

Do you mind if I hold you, my dear?  
I have tried an age and a half  
to awaken you from your numbness.  
Do you mind if, by mistake,  
my grip on you tightens a little?  
See, you've slipped from my hands once, and  
you fell,  
anew, anew,  
in the thorns and in the mire.  
Do you mind  
if, with no intent, I kiss you one last time?  
As I ken a farness  
which nigher comes  
between us.  
And you shall mind now, unknowing,  
you shall speak in curses and in swears,  
that I'm the one who's killed you.  
Do you mind, darling love,  
if I kill you now as well?

(Te superi dacă te țin, draga mea?  
Am încercat un veac și jumătate  
să te trezesc din amorțeală.  
Te superi, dacă, din greșeală,   
te strâng un pic mai tare?  
Vezi, te-am scăpat din mâini odată, și  
tu-ai căzut,  
mereu, mereu,  
în ghimpi și în pământ.  
Te superi  
dacă, fără voie, te sărut ultima dată?  
Căci cunosc o depărtare  
care mai aproape vine  
între noi.  
Și te vei supăra acum, neștiutoare,  
vei spune-njurii și blesteme,  
cum că eu te-am omorât.  
Te superi, iubire dragă,  
dacă te omor și-acum?)


	65. Pandemonium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

An unstoppable force met me today under a hickory.  
I was in the garden reading - reading, reading;  
reading in your thoughts and blinding, as if, thinking about them.  
Long haven't we seen each-other and, hoping, I've welcomed you - laugh,  
you laugh of my breath, last when I beheld the abyss,  
yours, ugly, complete, inconcrete.  
A nut fell, and you swallowed it.  
You've disguised yourself  
in hollow and perished once more.  
Laugh,  
you laugh, but I  
behold your abyss, and   
cry.

(O forță de neoprit m-a întâlnit astăzi sub un nuc.  
Eram în grădină și citeam - citeam, citeam;  
citeam în gândurile tale si orbeam, parcă, gândindu-mă la ele.  
De mult nu ne-am văzut și, sperând, te-am primit - râzi,  
tu râzi de suflul meu, ultim când am privit abisul  
tău, urât, complet, inconcret.  
O nucă a căzut, iar tu ai înghițit-o,  
te-ai camuflat  
în scorbură și-ai dispărut din nou.  
Râzi,  
tu râzi, dar eu  
îți privesc abisul, și  
plâng.)


	66. Mercury (Mercur)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

The shade of crown hovers over the oasis  
In which an elder mountain melted, and  
clouds bristle slow in it, devouring.  
A brute stone, translucent,'s waking its soul and foam, whispering   
"There is no death..."  
Then, with lips a crater and mind volcano, the sky shouts  
"There is no life!"  
And I say, with mouth full  
of fire, of smoke, of cinder that drowns,  
"If I could not live  
and yet  
nor shall I die,  
then love s'an impression  
as well."

Only I exist and dissolve in me.

(Umbra coroanei atârnă peste oaza  
în care un vechi munte s-a topit, iar  
norii se scutură încet în ea, marcând-o.  
O piatră brută, translucidă,-i trezește  
sufletul și spuma, șoptind   
"Nu există moarte..."  
Apoi, cu buzele un crater și mintea un vulcan, cerul zbiară  
"Nu există viață!"  
Iar eu spun, cu gura plină   
de foc, de fum, de cenușă care-neacă,  
"Dacă nu am putut trăi  
și totuși  
nici nu voi muri,  
atunci iubirea-i o impresie  
și ea."

Doar eu exist și mă dizolv în mine.)


	67. Helix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

Step not on my shell,  
as it shall split in rusted  
ichor, life elapsed and simper passed  
as well.  
For if you step on my shell,  
how could I ever evade it?

(Nu-mi călca cochilia,  
căci ea-mi crapă-n susur de  
sânge, viață scursă și surâsul mort  
și el.  
Dacă tu îmi calci cochilia,  
cum aș mai putea scăpa din ea?)


	68. Requiem Creaturae

Take my hand and fold it  
into a pocket;  
take my breath and pour it  
in a glass.  
I shall wait here in the forest  
where thou let me perching all these years.

No sound of rupture  
of a treebranch;  
no sound of fire  
of a noosefall.  
There is a quiet respectfully broken  
in the home of my eyes that is thou.

Consider this, creature, please remember,  
please remember and never forget:  
I am the one thou've elabored  
just as much as I've conquered thee.

The heat has emerged in the shadows  
of a winter long spent and inurned;  
the howls are beginning to echo  
in the thicket surrounding the ice.  
I reach for thy hand and I wonder  
what shall thou do with my own then.  
I reach for thy hand and I beg thee,  
I beg thee for a quick end.

I'm sorry, I whisper, forgive me.  
Forgive me for my simple mind.  
For I had thought I could trick thee  
and leave no more traces behind.

For I thought I could betray thee,  
and never expect thy crude ire.


	69. Savage Garden

The garden of all beauty, a caravan of misconception,  
beckons you to join its spring of  
youth, of wise and sole, your sole direction  
be your life, you life so vacant of its living, a living  
corpse that kills me on repeat, I hunger for its venom.

The scream,   
a sentence for a lifetime, you guileless man to assume their  
vaunt, their chaff, you have nothing, nothing! only illusions,  
you talented creator of old myths.  
Now I see you, you must run and nie return, but the throne is so  
alluring;   
the defense you've never had, lover  
of pretense, false crowns on long dried bodies, such that  
you were never King - what for?

Yes, you lose, you always lose, you lack  
conviction for your crimes, you slay by rhythm,  
molten ichor vines of stone, statues of eternity.  
Threads running through your skin,   
caught, you say  
death's nigh,   
you lie!   
You cannot die,   
you never do;   
you lie...

Damn you! You be damned,  
your Damnation is still churming, it is eating at your Fate,   
the Fate you've crafted,   
you ample Serpent, Mercury in its descent,  
how dare you beau in your existence?

You lie, you lie, you cannot  
die...  
Do not lie to me again, I'd know and best you.  
Your Doom is not your death.  
Your Doom's your fear of love.

And yet confessions pass your sharps,  
you wail this doom to my finale:

What do they know of darkness?   
What do they know of the blackened blindness of the soul?   
What do they know of isolation?   
Nothing.  
Nothing at all.


	70. Statue de l'Éternité

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statue de l'Éternité = Statues of Eternity (French)

When wilst thou conspire against  
constancy and fortune?  
I await thy redolent resistance  
and coil mine body engulfing thine  
to suffocate thy pious intents,  
thy sacred sins in secrecy divulged.  
Ah! - young rebel of milleniae too profuse,  
I await on bed of leaves  
thy arrival,  
revolt con life and its rouge rapture,  
Kiss me!  
Kiss me vicious, lusus mine,  
defile mine sheath with cruor cruel canard ilk,  
swallow the moan I breathe and flood it in thy lungs,  
Yes! - give me mine sin again,  
Kill me!  
Kill me luscious, beau mine,  
for in thou shalt I remain  
a statue of eternity.


	71. Lux Alba (Lumină Albă)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

Perhaps I come as well  
to see your salted drop on face,  
weak nature of lost men.

Perhaps I come to throw myself  
after the serpent round your neck,  
sweet choke o' freedom  
of hollow death, lacking taste.

Why come? To stay  
aside, powerless, to run,  
to flee a constancy from you, to drink  
lies of an expensive life,  
to sit on groots, to play them.  
Crack the wood, splinter of an elbow,  
dagger of a naked moon,  
white light you inspire from me, and I  
your soul expire.

Perhaps I come as well  
to join you.

(Poate vin și eu  
să-ți văd un strop sărat pe față,  
slabă fire de om dus.

Poate vin să mă arunc  
după șarpele ce-l porți la gât,   
sugrum dulce-al libertății  
de moarte seacă, fără gust.

De ce să vii? Să stai  
deoparte, neputincios, să fugi,  
constant s-alergi în urma ta, să bei  
minciuni de viață scumpă,  
să te-așezi pe-un ciot, să-l cânți.  
Sparge lemnul, așchie de-un cot,  
pumnal de lună goală,  
lumină albă mi-o inspiri, iar eu  
expir sufletul tău.)

Poate vin și eu  
să ți m-alătur.


	72. Train (Tren)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in English, later translated into Romanian

We run,  
as if to catch the moon,  
baiting to the entree of our minds.  
We step on split glass and whimper,   
but still we run,  
go hide in our silver rails.  
The white gloom, unforeseen and   
indifferent,  
distorts our sweet mouths,  
making them bleed, the howl  
reflecting our thoughts:  
Go slowly, so we can expect you.

We come from the lumen  
and darkness we enter,  
like a mother you miss when she's dead  
The howling returns,  
we proceed to the tunnel,  
a train that we might have missed  
\- the train for perdition,  
the train of our mother,  
the train to quietus fatal.

And we turn our veneers,  
and we barely glimpse  
the train, its trail, it's nighing to us.

And we run, and we hide,  
as if not at last finding  
the train.

(Fugim,  
ca pentru-a prinde luna,  
pândind să pătrundă în minți.  
Călcăm pe geam spart, suspinăm,  
dar totuși fugim,  
să ne-ascundem sub șine-argintii.  
Ceața albă, neprevăzută,  
indiferentă,   
ne-alungă dulcele guri,  
le-nsângerează, un urlet  
spunându-ne fricile:  
Mergi încet, să te putem aștepta.

Noi din lumen venim  
și-n umbre ne găsim,  
ca o mamă de care ți-e dor și-i moartă;  
Urletul revine,  
ne-îndreptăm spre tunel,  
un tren ce l-om fi pierdut  
\- tren pentru perdiție,  
tren al mamei noastre,  
tren spre quietus fatal.

Și ne întoarcem fațetele,  
și abia de sărim  
trenul, vagonul, se-apropie de noi.

Și fugim, și ne-ascundem,  
parcă n-am fi găsit la urmă  
trenul.)


	73. Imagine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

My fingers tremble about  
a calla, of livid blue, I strangle  
her petals and her flesh,  
and I crush her with a shoe.  
The civit cinder a dark  
soil consumes, gross births the death  
of lily - and with her, my spirit.

I hear a howl of a fish,  
the craving of a drying creed, and I,  
dreaded as I am him matching,  
throw myself to swim with him  
\- Ah!, if only I knew to choose  
to swim with flowers, to set in water.

(Îmi tremură degetele în jurul  
calei de livid albastru, îi sugrum  
petalele și trupul,  
și-o strivesc sub un pantof.  
Cenușa civită-o mănâncă  
solul negru, iarba-i naște moartea  
calei, și cu ea, sufletul meu.

Aud urletu-unui pește,  
pofta unui crez uscat, iar eu,  
temută fiindcă-l scrutez,  
mă arunc să-not cu el  
\- Ah!, de-aș învăța s-aleg  
să înot cu floarea, să apun în apă.)


	74. No Regret. (Nu regret.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thought out in both English and Romanian, but first written in English

I stare in space as you are breathen,  
as you be shutting as a bud,  
tempting in your luscious petal,  
a rose with lacerating thorns.

What have I pluckered from mine eyes,  
to spill a sea, to spit a star?  
For of all I've ever laughed in tears,  
all have been and spit on me.

I'm encrouched in void, to die,  
to engulf myself in world;  
I stay an ethereal cry,  
an empty soul and a bemoan.

Empty - of guilt, of sin,  
image of a painted saint,  
and my centre is a foam.

No regret, no regret...  
but a regret is left in you.

(Privesc în gol cum te răsufli,  
cum te închizi ca un boboc,  
ispititor 'n-a ta petală,  
un trandafir și ghimpii.

Ce-am cules din ochii mei,  
să dau o mare, să scuip o stea?  
Căci de toate-am râs plângând,  
toate-au fost și m-au scuipat.

M-am chircit în vid, să mor,  
să mă-nconjor în lume;  
eu am trăit nemuritor,  
un suflet gol ș-un nume.

Gol - de vină, de păcat,  
imaginea-unui sfânt pictat,  
iar centrul meu e spumă.

Nu regret, nu regret...  
dar un regret rămas e-n tine.)


	75. Salvation's Raw

You should ken that when I see you,  
there's nothing left in the world.  
Perhaps my rambling thoughts and senses,  
as I cohere your features, your lips moving, eyes beckoning.  
I am lost, know not where to go and what to make of myself.  
Help me.


	76. Wooden Rope (Frânghie de Lemn)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

A branch breaks and falls  
on a bundle of dry leaves,  
pine leaves;  
A branch breaks and falls  
on the head of that who threw  
a rock;  
He gets up, shakes off, howls,  
thrilled by day's cold, awakens  
from an age of sleep, awakens,  
humbled by the shade of tree,  
rises  
from the bed of worms, glimpses  
a child at the window:  
he picks up the stone and throws it in rays  
wandering an empty chamber  
\- the child is dead, and the window is dead,  
and the shadow in the chamber is dead.

From the cut-down tree now a hanged man swings.

(O creangă se rupe și cade  
pe un morman de frunze-uscate  
de pin;  
O creangă se rupe și cade  
în capul celui ce-a aruncat  
o piatră;  
El se ridică, se scutură, muge,  
înfiorat de frigul zilei, se trezește  
din veacul de somn, se trezește,  
cocoșat de-umbra-celui pom,  
se scoală  
din patul de viermi, zărește  
un copil la fereastră:  
ia piatra de jos și-o aruncă-nspre raza  
ce colindă-o cameră goală  
\- copilul e mort, și fereastra e moartă, iar umbra din cameră-i moartă.

De copacul tăiat atârnă acum un om spânzurat.)


	77. Red Wolf (Lupul Roșu)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

Wind hollers in the walls,  
whirling in a wooden branch,  
it smells of smoke and of brimstone,  
penetrate the winter leaflet;  
the leaf trembles then it falls,  
bypassed runs along a stream  
\- sobbing of black water -  
the fire catches it and burns.

Eyeball, parched for crisps and time,  
sipping, sipping,  
sipping time and drowning;  
hasty passes he through time, time through him passes  
and blinds him.  
Drops the Moon in black water,  
sky in wet ripe tides, the Black  
Wolf boils in shadows, howls:  
"Red Moon, blind me!;  
Red Moon, feed me!  
As I am famished and I want,  
want, want  
your age of lifetime, Moon! kill me-  
\- I crave your sweet decline..."

Black Wolf inspires Red Moon;  
Black Moon instills Red Wolf-  
\- Red Wolf fire consumes, as fire him consumes.

(Vântul urlă în pereți,  
clocotește-n crengi de lemn,  
miroase-a fum și a pucioasă,  
pătrunzând în frunza iernii;  
frunza tremură și cade,  
ocolită fuge pe-un șuvoi  
\- suspin de apă neagră -,  
o prinde focul și o arde.

Ochiul, însetat de scrum și timp,  
soarbe, soarbe,  
soarbe timpul și se-neacă;  
pripit trece el prin timp, timpul prin el trece  
și-l orbește.  
Pică Luna-n apa neagră, sparge  
ceru-n valuri coapte, Lupul  
Negru fierbe-n umbră, strigă:  
"Lună Roșie, orbește-mă! ;  
Lună Roșie, hrănește-mă!  
Căci sunt flămând și vreau,  
vreau, vreau  
veacul tău de viață, Lună! omoară-mă -  
\- eu doresc declinul tău..."

Lupul Negru inspiră Luna Roșie;  
Luna Neagră insuflă Lupul Roșu -  
\- Lupul Roșu consumă foc, iar focul îl consumă.)


	78. The Hanging Tree

They meet at dawn or dusk,  
when mist in darkness must  
confess its cover, sublime shallow  
bark, a rope, an ankle,  
this small rite,  
a great price to pay.  
Conquer must I through the realm  
of brief encounters, lost messages from messengers' old mouths.  
I am shifted from my former,  
moving forward to my latter, and  
swiftly sleeping my own breath, I command sage king's stringress  
to rise, to fall, to kneel, as I regard her one more glance.  
Your cloak is red,  
your clothes are shed,  
crimson of your sins  
or mine;  
clear path, oak trees leading us the papers.  
I'm glinting at the strings of  
one small guileful varmint,  
the Mistress that can't have a ring.  
Seduction often hangs.


	79. Inopia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inopia = poverty, to suffer from want of a thing (Latin)
> 
> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

I can no longer air  
to drink, wine  
to spit, blood  
to sleep, dreams  
to want, mind  
to seek, age  
to skip, life  
to die.

I can no longer  
live, liven in life's living, leave and liveth me,  
deliver me.

(Nu mai pot aer  
să beau, vin  
să scuip, sânge  
să dorm, vise  
să vreau, minte  
să caut, veacuri  
să uit, viață  
să mor.

Nu mai pot  
să vii, vii în voia viii, vino să mă vei,  
scapă-mă.)


	80. Decadence of a Flower

I can see thy sweet dismay,  
when thou weepst in grief, in vain  
hoping for a marvel's change  
of words, of destine, of thy name.

I shout in ringlings out thy sorrow,  
Come!, forget the crown thou bear, of hollow  
knowledge, without wisdom, with no  
recollection of thy luce, a window.

Widower of thine own grace, thou criest,  
singular in thy domain, the chimes of death  
are singing on thy fate, they mourn thy loss,  
I mourn thy gain;

For face the Sun thou forced them to,  
and they were blinded by the light,  
the light too bright for their blind minds,  
they're not as thee, their souls are mild.

In timeless soil thou throwest thee,  
deserted beebalm, a star to be,  
to be forfeit by these poor people,  
to raise above them, and be vetoed.

"Let me sail time", thou pleadst,  
"Let me wail mine on the sea,  
for I've fallen from mine grace,  
in grass to rise, in grass to rise  
into the sky that ever shines with life,  
in evergreen, in ever sun, in ever me,

to rise, to rise, to be repealed."


	81. Small Death

Give me a small death, yeh,  
in the woods somewhere,  
as I come to you  
unannounced and  
with no preamble.  
'Cause who would suspect, eh?  
As the car overheats,  
you slur a few curses,  
I turn and we meet.  
And all's sudden quiet,  
the oil burns right beside us;  
we'd almost combust, and with no idea.

Give me a small death  
to surpass my impending end.


	82. While I Am Away

There are things in this world I would rather not do.  
Things in this world I would rather not say.  
And yet I do them anyway.

And as I pay my dues and leave in debts,  
you're left behind  
\- I have left you behind.  
And as the flower grows within you,  
like a cancer,  
you alone wheeze wails in our empty room,  
I am away, I am away,  
I hear you not;  
and it blooms out of your core,  
leaves you deserted,  
like I did.  
You remain the earth  
it shall flourish on.

There are things in this world I would rather not do.  
Things in this world I would rather not say.  
And yet I do them anyway.


	83. Hey There, Cornflower

Hey there, cornflower,  
what will you do?  
There's scavengers here,  
they've been waiting for you.

Watching your lover  
with poison in your eyes,  
Each time you touched her  
she borrowed from your ice.

They'll burn down your statue  
the minute you're away;  
requital's born in you,  
you'll lead them all astray.

And there comes disaster,  
you're aloft, you're aloft  
at sea with your monsters,  
you are lost, you are lost.

The tempest's close preying,  
it is nigh, it is nigh;  
So let's both start praying,  
you're the eye, you're its eye.

They'll ask for forgiveness,  
all them soldiers, with their orders,  
And you, in your vengeance,  
"None to give, naught to say...  
"I have come here on my own  
To blow my brains away..."

Hey there, cornflower,  
what will you do?  
There's scavengers here,  
they've been waiting for you.


	84. And then...

And then I died  
by burn of rope  
and lack of air  
in my lungs desperately croaking for a breath.  
The gate I opened  
by my severed neck  
was like passage due to cutting of a flower's head.  
And then I flew - or did I flee? - to hyacinths long passed  
of lost souls  
just like mine,  
finding me a redbud tree to climb.  
So then I reached the tree with all its branches;  
it was no soul in sight, only imagines  
of you and I,  
of you and I,  
of you...  
... And I besought then the noose I gathered,  
and then I in my dreamt up damnation died.


	85. Ramblings of a madman #1

My sweet, Carnal Carolina,  
let me taste the nectar of your carnation,  
let me drown in its lush balm.  
Come, voracious lover of ages passed;  
your wilderness consumes me,  
your tenderness is sin.


	86. Ramblings of a madman #2

You cajole, then you spit,  
You say Fuck!, then you split.  
I want more, but you cuss,  
You adjourn, yet you must!  
Yes, you must, dear heart,  
Not to keep me apart  
From your ways and your sways,  
I'll take any, I'll take grains!  
Of the sand that slips through feeble hands,  
I'll take whits! of your warmth,  
I'll take piles of your ice!  
I'll take all that you give  
And then raise up the price!  
But you don't give me scratch! Oh,  
You insolent loon, you don't know  
That you must! Yes, you must love me too,  
You should lust for my hate,  
You should beg  
For my fist, oh your leg,  
Look! Black and blue,  
Have you ever known, darling,  
It's the colour for you!  
Now, now, don't you cry,  
You're just making me sigh  
With my love reanewed  
From the lashes and blows,  
Oh they've sweetened me so!  
Yes, your lips are slight wilted,  
But let's get you the rouge!  
Oh how nice, look at you,  
Your still eyes have illumed!  
And you're looking at me - or are you? Aren't you?  
Oh it don't matter now,  
S'all the same anyhow,  
If I ask if you're dead,  
You keep silent instead!

Nevermind, dear heart,  
I shall turn you in art,

And I'll stay forever in gloom,  
Forever crave your moon,  
Forever crave your moon!


	87. Ramblings of a madman #3

They've come to take us away.  
I can hear the engines of the three plus police cars, and the siren of a nearby ambulance. I can hear the tap-tap-tap at the door downstairs. I can hear them shouting 'Open the damn door or we will kick it down!' And I can hear them kicking it down.  
I don't bother to rise from the bed. I can't risk leaving your side. You look like a newly bloomed garden that appeared after the rain had poured over a freshly dug grave. How can I miss out on the poetry of you?  
I take your hand in mine, and it's a stone of marble. I kiss it and it falls limp in my lap. I cannot let it fall, so I pick it up again. I kiss it, I kiss your fingertips that smell of orchids, and your mouth that has become a poppy in the centre of a lily valley.  
I want to drown myself in this smell and in this taste, the only taste left in the world, the taste of sour solitude and cadaverous imagines, the taste of love so pure that the passion clung to it also tastes like a drug, a medicine of chastity, and I drink from it like a madman, my love, like you have taught me - and to think I once lived in tastelessness!  
They knock this door down too. They come, about seven of them, and point their pretty little guns at my head, all at once. I have guns over me, and flowers before me, and I do not want to move an inch. 'Hands up!', they say, and I raise them, and in them are your hands, and your fucking beautiful body is sitting now, covering mine, sheltering me in blood and putrefaction. They don't know. How could they, after all?  
Only you and I know.


	88. In the end

In the end,  
there is only the branch,  
and the loop on the branch,  
and I hanging in it.  
I wonder if, in the end,  
I have loved too much,  
so much  
that I had to kill you,  
and then kill me also,  
for still it was  
not enough.


	89. After My Death, but with a Name

I will not leave you with a word  
after my death, but with a name  
on a blank paper and empty  
of any substance.

I will not leave you, my dear children,  
but with the poison you expected  
of me to swallow.

Why are you then so surprised?

I will not leave you, I say.  
For the body is a fog,  
and the hand...  
it's in a glove...  
For this casket, it is covered,  
and it's not the grave I meant for me.

I will not leave you with a word  
after my death, but with a name.  
Search then not for me,  
but wait.


	90. Shadows and Ashes

Sunflowers cannot look to the heavens any longer,  
so they turn to each other.  
Poor substitute for true flame,  
for only shadows dwell here,  
and ashes.  
Poor imagine  
of the fire,  
burn away like hyacinths.

The light goes out.  
The candle drowns in its martyrdom.  
In remembrance of the sun, it weeps.


	91. Pied Piper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the story of Ryan White, an AIDS suffering child

"When I die", the child says, "do not bury me in a suit and a tie."  
And his voice carries no contempt.  
The mother cries restlessly.  
The Pied Piper watches, and briskly turns to the boy.  
"Come with me", he says,  
"The time is near for your departure."  
The boy wonders. "Is it true?  
Am I to live and just follow you?"  
Cadaverous fingers, skin-slight bones of tenderness, grip at the given hand.

Long before you go, Pied Piper, will the child have been gone.  
Long before you dream, Pied Piper, will he have been asleep.  
Long before you blink, Pied Piper, will the child have left.

A small voice carries away from the clouds,  
even with the smaller casket  
underground:  
"When I die", it says, "bury me not in a suit and a tie."


	92. The Magpie's Fees

The magpie sees  
in the vast seas  
some glinting fees  
to take from naïves.

Poor guiltless crawl  
in deep water squall  
to escape the frown  
of one judge's loan.

Take all their money  
when they've no attorney  
so you may taste honey  
in afterlife agony.


	93. Such a Simple Question

How do I love you?  
Oh, such a simple question.  
Yet, how  
do I love you?

Like a father, like a son;  
like a brother, like a friend;  
like a lover... like myself...  
Why does it matter?

It is a deep well and I drown in it,  
and still from this water I draw my last breath.  
It all begins and ends with you.  
For who are you? If not  
another lover, another friend,  
and another part of myself.

Fortunate are you in your solace,  
solitude sublime and  
ignorance, a prestige.  
Fortunate are you  
in your aloneness.  
As in no moment do you belong to the world  
\- see that you never do.


	94. Mockingbird

If my weeping corpse too grave  
sits under the forest lane,  
kiss it soft on my behalf,  
Promise it to mourn by half,  
'Cause from it shall I return  
Hollow from my spirit's burn;  
Yet from sky I'll fly toward  
You, just like a mockingbird,  
To kiss the grave that I've been in,  
To welcome you into my dream.  
And them, who've waited me in trial,  
I shall damn into denial.


	95. They've All Fled

Is there any man left on Earth?

Oh, but I believe they've all fled to the Moon,  
and on their way they found a ray  
and lost themselves, and lost their pain.

But what do we do with the Earth?  
It is vacant and it's blooming.

But what to do about the Moon?  
I'm alone here - I've been waiting,  
and the wait has been for you.


	96. Dear One,

"Dear One,

I have long postponed the words,  
to write them from my deepest chords,  
for I so far have thought to me,  
What's with all this mystery?  
Why not let it all be known?  
Why tell lies to have truth shown?  
As they were weeping your demise,  
I myself were a disguise  
of shadows lengthened  
over valleyes,  
of ashes scattered  
over stories  
which I've told to tell a lie  
that I'm dead and yet don't die,  
that I live and yet don't sigh,  
and in sleep I never cry.  
Oh, but weeps are long and dry, let me tell you  
\- or let me tell I -  
and from tears I drink my breath,  
and from dreams I smell my death  
to never pass, in vain to stay  
and tell me secrets of its game.  
But who are you - and who am I?  
I've been wrong for all this time  
to think that I might be of use  
\- the shadow is then but a fuse;  
And all our searches, in the end,  
With empty answers have been met.  
Yet there's one more question left:  
Is there really no regret?"

All those borders, never bent  
All those letters, never sent


	97. Farewell: A Milestone

So my flowers by the window are looked upon  
with hunger and with malice.  
I have to always slay the voyeurs  
as they tend to tresspass  
the ground they're blooming from.

And so are lights upon my face, but  
does no one see my shadow?  
Does no one hear the news?  
How many of you believe  
the truth that's buried in my lies?

Are you listening?

What will become of these last words,  
I wonder,  
as rotten flies fly to catch the light  
and burn...  
Will they be swallowed and then mourned?  
Will they be doubted and then frowned?  
How alone it will be  
the time that passes after time,  
how lonely death can be, even when,  
even when...  
I cannot stay, as much as my heart lingers,  
so my face needs to go,  
and yet  
I shall never leave.

But, please,  
listen on


	98. Aloneness, Not

In times of aloneness, I am not truly alone.  
For I have long lived your life that life's old livings  
are no more than a ficlet, or a dream.  
I have long not lived, and I am tired of dying.  
In my aloneness I prefer to stand alone,  
and to breathe from my own breath,  
to burn by my restless bets  
of recklessness inquires,  
than to have my skin shed from me  
for a thing I didn't do.  
Oh, my shadow, leave me then  
alone  
as I am tired, so tired,  
of dying with you.


	99. Whirlwind

Grief is much like fear,  
I heard.  
Yeh, I heard it empties your soul,  
and then you're frantic,  
blindly searching for a core.  
I heard you need to spin,  
and twirl fast, so fast, and faster,  
so there's motion in the world, and then you're still.  
You feel naught besides the movement,  
and it moves you brisk  
and then-  
...  
... you breathe...  
...  
I heard grief is much like fear,  
but if it's grief or fear I feel,  
it doesn't matter.  
I know I need to twirl,  
not unlike the blind eye of the storm,  
so that I no longer am  
at all.


	100. Is It Fair?

Is it fair?  
What is fair?  
Fair is the wind, the sea is fair  
when its foam is in mid-air.  
Fair is the sun, projected in moon.  
Fair is a springtime flower in bloom.

Is justice fair?  
Don't make me laugh,  
you say the word like it's a farce.  
You, it is you who asks?  
You, who asks so much of me,  
when I am but an empty vessel  
waiting to be filled.  
Take then! - what you claim as yours,  
take my bread and gain my soul,  
as for you there is no difference  
what is truth and what's false witness  
\- either way there's way for more.  
Isn't that all you adore?

Oh, don't chastise me for being so simple-  
-minded, so very poor-  
-worded,  
as I'm just wording it for you.


	101. Elogy for a Tragedy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the song "Who Screamed?" interpreted by Jerome Pradon in the one-man audio musical "Crime of Passion"

Who screamed?  
No one.

Don't look there, nothing there,  
just a farce,  
just a trick of the wind,  
shush! be quiet...

Who's there?  
No one.  
Close your eyes, a disguise  
of the door,  
it just creaked,  
nothing more.

Run, run!  
What from?  
Just for fun, let us run,  
just for fun,  
please-I-beg-you,  
let us run.

What's that?  
Oh, just hay, it's aflame,  
faceless stranger, calling  
'Danger!',  
not important, just a knife,  
it's alright, just some blood,  
not a word! just some blood...

Just some blood...

Just some blood...?

It is blood!...  
.  
.  
.  
Who screamed?  
No one.

There's no one left.


	102. Myth of Moon and Flight

Because I saw an ethereal being  
that was and is and shall,  
as in all the heavens dwell,  
live eternal in grand life,  
for in what else might his wings gorge themselves,  
but the odd and everlasting death?

I seem to give an explanation for  
already passed past events,  
not defined through words but senses,  
as I cannot word them yet.

How could my  
lead tongue improve  
a memory so lividly true,  
how could my breaths, short, describe an  
endlessness of sorts?  
How, how, how, I howl all questions to the Moon,  
but she feigns indifference now, hiding  
soft behind the sun,  
she weeps,  
just as I wept,  
watching the being step by step, she  
sings the tune that we dance to,  
she cries, and we ask  
Why?  
But then she lies,  
and the shadows that she casts  
not as trails but as the sea they part  
our islands, one by one  
to part our ways and split our hearts.

And we ask  
Who?  
Who are you,  
being outcast from the Moon,  
to have wings as birds that fly,  
to have worms that crawl nearby,  
Who are you?

We call them angels,  
those with wings that we know not,  
and even if we knew them how could we not?  
As the oil sky drips its melted  
fire, indigo aflame and lightened,  
onto our heads giving us crowns,  
do we not moan?  
Do we not howl?

Because I saw an ethereal being,  
and I knew not the answers  
to disquiet contrasting critiques,  
the view placed in the shadows, trees  
swallowed by the bees,   
moths eloped in the moonlight,  
and yet I could see...

If worms eat birds will they still fly?


	103. Prospect for Death

What would you do,  
as a star set into the sky,  
slip of a brush onto the blackness,  
what would you do if you died?

As when I gaze upward,  
what remains of death but for a word?  
There's nothing left of you  
but for the ray steering at the loon,  
remains of a light  
long passed yet only now arrived,  
remains of a life,  
inheritance of that which has flown by,  
remnants from a soul,  
scattered across as dust, spread amongst us all.

And from your vast and endless ruin,  
ancient relics still ascend  
and dance in spite of moonlight charring  
losses from which you've been sent.

What would you have done, then,  
if you had died?  
Well, in my awakening collapse, my dear,  
I would have lied.


	104. Tribute to the White Eagle

Have you ever heard of the white eagle?

Let me tell you of his legendary flight,  
stories of travels and terrors of night:

The dusk is near and the eagle  
long forgotten in the shadows flies,  
seeks to find a lonely feather.  
Feather alone it hides in the stones  
deep under rivers that ancients condone  
yet flow in offensive distrust  
between mountains of high pines, of ashes and dust.  
So the eagle high cries a battle howl,  
he sharp looks for the feather he's lost,  
he's lost in his searches and never he stops  
for a breath or a sigh, he never does yield, nigh,  
and the white eagle flies in   
the darkness, survives the pretences  
of low-cost expenses, he  
dies when the dawn comes, and  
then he revives,  
he's master of shadows and veiled tones and lies;  
and below the white  
feathers as graced by the twilight  
low stand the moorish strands  
of an abandoned land,  
low stand their lands,  
extinct by the white hand.

Oh, you people,  
you have been watched by the white eagle,  
and not once did you recall,  
and not once did you atone.


	105. Spasmodic

Will you sing me a song?  
I cannot sleep. I have tried,  
don't take me for a fool  
saying words, meaningless and cruel.  
Meaning's lost when I close my eyes,  
I cry when it gets dark,  
I die,  
and in my tiredness I lust  
for life, yet my life in sleep abides.  
Do you see my issue?

Damn it.

I say you're time, like the river  
of crude lines, I shiver  
at the bites I have been given  
by Time's teeth, laughter brute  
and simple.  
The hours are stretching as a chord,  
and I feel like it will snap.  
When it does, will the days contract  
and fall?  
When the time passes through me  
as I fail to pass it by,  
sounds of ripping  
flesh molesting my eyes  
closed and mind alive,  
will you hum a lullaby?


	106. Undone

A killing spree  
of evergreen trees,  
come down from above me  
as I can't see.  
Cut, cuss and collect  
hail and respect,  
unswallow your tongue  
and sing me a song.  
Will you not unwind  
the liquified spine  
of a cracked joke of pleasure  
to undo the weather?  
God, unwalk the time  
of crude phony crimes,  
let's use deception  
as our infinite measure...  
So murder me, please,  
it will show on receipts,  
take out your pen, and write down on trees:  
To the unnamed, come  
with aftermath chords,  
prove your concealed  
face, don't ask for more.

Yet I just eat my words  
\- it's undone.


	107. Illusionist

If you find a dove in the sand,  
don't kill it.  
Its wings are bent, and yet  
how many miles can it still fly...  
It escaped from me, you see,  
and on its way back home to you  
it fell.  
A mage I am,  
the forged man told me,  
and I could see his covered hand.  
\- The coast is dry, there are no tides,  
the dove can surely still fly.  
The bird's elusive,  
he said to me,  
its feathers swelling with the sea.  
You cannot see, but with its eyes  
I could paint it a disguise,  
I could fly it far away,  
and make it laugh  
a different pain.  
You cannot see, but it's no lie,  
the moon knows the sea to hide,  
so let it here, lying  
on the blue-ing shore,  
for this is my last curtain call.  
\- Leave it here? Leave it die?  
Who does that - let doves cry?  
Look, a mirror, conceive it  
and forget the mist of changeling,  
forget your eyes just  
for a moment, believe  
the game, for I've no name  
to share and claim  
and tell you why,  
believe,  
and then no dove shall cry.  
\- Leave the light on  
in the middle of an empty stage;  
Then I'll know.


	108. Alice, Alice...

Alice, Alice,  
how you doing, Alice,  
screaming for release  
in the corner of the streets?

But markers and opium  
never did you any good,  
they get inside your head  
to bargain load and bread.

Whiskey and cigarettes,  
the wins to all your bets,  
put down your pack of cards  
and lick this shaft for bars  
\- Count down from ten to one  
there's nothing to be done  
but lie upon the bed  
and spread your legs instead.

They tell you how to lie  
and seem like you've undied,  
they don't want a still corpse  
to fill them with remorse  
\- So cry then, pry then,  
put on a little make-up,  
now you're looking fine,  
get dressed and here's your dime.

Alice, Alice,  
whatcha doing, darling?  
Selling off yourself  
for brownstone, pearl and meth...


	109. Lapse at Dawn

Enrapture my doomed core,  
a rapture for carcasses,  
don't take back what is raw,  
just kiss it and say Good night,  
sweet thing, good night,  
soiled sheets,  
oh...  
And the foil is of the world,  
dance of mourning courses,  
morning, sliding inside,  
prying coffee in perfume  
\- Why don't you take them all  
and die?  
Unearth the covers, covers lie,  
now I lay undying  
\- What is pure and what is rotten?  
I seem to have forgotten.  
Just kiss the apple, swallow more  
of corpses that cry crumbling   
\- Or have you neglected all?  
No, God, no...


	110. Fawn Dawn, Fay May

Not long ago, in time of straw,  
The creatures of the forest came to me.  
And then they said, what tears they shed!:  
"No one knows of love and how it is...  
You see, your eyes, they tell you lies,  
For what is there the light, it cannot reach.  
Under the stairs of moss and hay,  
The wind is frowning wide and then it smiles  
To stand alone, over and gone,  
To fill the void that's left behind a tree.  
And there he lays, a mask of clay,  
He looks oblique as you down at him stare:  
The Fawn of Dawn, he sings a song,  
Calling out to those he'll never meet,  
His kin, his child, humming in chime,  
As the battle of earth and sky is just begun...  
Oh, the cries! the wails of whys,  
Of Why are children lillies of valleys?  
Why do flowers part gardens in armies?  
There's flowers red and flowers gold,  
The gold of sun and red of the blood.  
But where's the blue ones in the cold?  
The blue of mad eyes and the blue of mould.  
He chants the rhymes to distant skies,  
He lifts his eyes to watch an old star die.  
And with disgust puts on disguise,  
In shame to kill himself before the craze,  
Before the gun takes toll of foes Upstairs,  
To leave, to live to fight another day...  
Yet there she stays, the Fay of May:  
A crown of dust upon the crust  
Of pray...  
She counts the mines of all good dimes  
They paid to start the war under the foam.  
The wave's her fate, all grand and great,  
To give away what has been made to world.  
And there, a rupture, his brief departure,  
Swollen from the lawn upon his grave,  
The loam, to tear its core and break its fame.  
And here, their dance, lost in a trance,  
Fawn Dawn, Fay May, in fountain veiled,  
They pray...  
The fireflies, oh sweet comply  
To guard their well conveyed from battle bells.  
Shush! Then she says, Hush, they crush the mush.  
The shift of whiff, it blows of death,  
The perfume of an ongoing consume  
Of breath and shells, they hide and dwell  
In yards of covet martyrdom, they yell.  
But is there anyone to hear them?  
He goes to war, he has been called,  
Been theft along with buds not bloomed of yet.  
And he survives, the slay, the price,  
Surprised to have returned in gloom to her.  
A fool! She says, can't recollect  
His orbs, how they adorn crippled lagoons.  
Are you Fawn Dawn? Fay May, she mourns,  
For his face has been replaced with riddled glaze.  
Yes, dear, I am, I have been banned,  
I pass the moons, elope their dooms, and wait  
As you, a nymph, write down the glyphs  
Unnamed to give my name a place to be:  
To leave, to live to love another May..."


	111. I (Don't) Want to Die

I welcome you today  
To come along my way  
To try and break me from  
The suicidal forms

I killed myself today  
For breaking news and fame  
I did it to prevail  
To see those who will wail

I killed myself today  
And still I draw a breath  
To share a wind and sigh  
The freedom that is nigh

I killed myself today  
In overdosal ways  
They say it was the doc  
I say it was a mock

So I tried and sailed away  
I sailed across the sea  
As if they think I'm buried  
Perhaps they won't find me

If I died a thousand deaths  
I'd still not be dead today

Yeah, I tried and sailed away...


	112. Barmecide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barmecide = illusory or imaginary and therefore disappointing

Pouring, like a storm,  
an ambush of sorts, it is  
cutting, bones freeze  
and still I stand here  
for a smoke.  
It is only in the rain that I can cry,  
I let it wash away  
my feeble smile,  
false as all else  
seems to me.  
And what of you?  
Are those raindrops or tears  
moistening your lips?  
Is that your breath or your death  
that you wheeze?  
Or is nothing ever  
as it seems?


	113. Waltz

So long, so long,  
they sing:  
shards of glass  
broken, amber port  
trifled, the embers filled silence,  
reminiscent of two souls, two shards,  
who once shared a kindle  
but now only cinder  
remains.  
Tender, tender,  
the bodies surrender,  
only the dance of ghosts  
trailling,  
sailing,  
prevails.


	114. Charmed and Sold

You go to a fortune teller  
trading in tents for  
coins and silver, pay it  
and tell her what to sell.  
She says it's too cheap, a dream,  
such a frivolous thing  
to give away.  
Sow it together  
with feeble sand, pebbles,  
dreams are like dust  
or so they say-  
So here she surrenders,  
she sings charms and enters  
your mind, places filled  
with someone else's dream.  
For what once was gold  
now it is rust,  
that's all you get when  
you chase after dreams of dust.


	115. The Ballad of Captain James

Let me tell you of Captain James  
who sailed the seas and ran them wails.  
He sat in a corner in his bungalow,  
there wasn't such sailor to have that much gold,  
and he smoked his pipe, yet he was alone.  
Captain James sailed far away,  
on land he said was damn dismay,  
he'd flick his wrist and plunder bays  
\- the ports were empty at his arrival,  
he found few coins and no more rivals,  
he raged then and hollered at his men,  
Take them lassies, you search every den!

Ruthlessness is taught in death, he said,  
nothing comes with pure intend  
as rascals play the poorest lambs  
and lambs are burnt and dead.  
Let me give you some advice,  
I've been and gone and thrown the dice  
of life, of hands, of clocks, of knives,  
they had me in the end.  
So kick them while they lick you,  
treat them with some salt, as meat  
is much more than a quirk, you see,  
nothing is of worth unless there's fear,  
sweet fear,  
to keep you somewhat sane.

The lasses came, he pillaged them,  
he said to them they're much too plain,  
They cry and weep with much conceit  
and they're crude and lewd and neat.  
And then one girl, she's much too young,  
she came forward and stood her ground,  
She said, "Captain James I've got a name  
that's much too short and much too lame,  
you call me Girl, I'll recommend:  
I think you're in need of a hand."  
He looked at her, the damnest Girl,  
ginger-haired with eyes like pearls,  
She can't be more than just a child,  
Oh, but this card is too wild!  
He took her in and gave her all,  
he lashed at her and loved her raw,  
yet what he hid is what she saw:

Crippled eyes, maddened  
by the liquid cries, saddened  
at the sea so long reddened  
with blood shed from stories  
whispered in the shadows  
by widows, kinsmen, scoundrels,  
fondelling the sparrows, telling them  
of the one-handed,  
blue-eyed,  
ruthless Captain James...

Nigh the night began the fight,  
then without a regiment  
he fought and bled and gave away  
his one remaining hand.  
And after they took all his gold,  
saying t'was of royal blood,  
they shacked his neck up in a noose,  
spit on his head, they fuelled the ruse,  
Oh, of Captain James...


	116. In Forlorn Wells

The crude cries come  
from deep throats, lungs  
have foretold hums  
of chasm songs, yet...  
They part in pain,  
the weeps of rain  
long have caressed  
shallow parades  
stripped nude of shame,  
just God remains  
above brimmed wells  
to soothe their strains.  
Deserted here,  
said 'safe and sound',  
in lost lifes bared  
we have been found.  
Oh God, hear us!  
Lean down your ear,  
we've been abused  
\- there's no one near...


	117. Monarch

These are the last days of the Monarch.  
He batted his wings  
for so long a year,  
for a clock, or two, or  
three, it does not matter,  
he craved for flight,  
so long he tried  
and yet  
-Oh, the breaking of his wings...

These are the last days of the butterfly.  
His blueness once vivid now is  
livid, it is so cruelly marred,  
marked, one might say,  
with the M of the Monarch  
and yet,  
and yet he cried, with  
the cry of an insect,  
and he was  
stepped on, with the boot  
of a man, yes...

No.

These are the last days.


	118. Is This It?

Is this it?  
Can anyone hear the scream?  
It fuels such a tarnishing beat.  
The bit clicks, the nails scratch,  
a blood trail, on the back  
the blood leaks,  
the lick's carnage, you cannot detect  
the contrast, the moan from a wail,  
Is this all?  
Correction of power,  
Lord! I say power  
completed in carnal distraction,  
they carve out reactions  
distinguished, two tongues  
and two hearts in one fraction,  
Lord!  
Can someone  
\- someone other than me -   
can they hear?  
The profane sound  
of flesh ripping,  
red ribbons dripping,  
inhumane howl  
in time severed,  
for what was is and shall,  
it will preserve  
that mindless lore  
of mindlessness, abuse  
gifted to infuse  
greatness in assault,  
the vault's been broken,  
all its treasure is misspent,  
Repent! Chariots  
to carry riots of misuse,  
the missing pieces, the confused  
cries of wheels on pavement's dues,  
the concrete's hard, punishing  
the skin crippled from exploit,  
but they've got scavengers to hoist,  
the colors blinded sail away,  
the edge is near, the world...  
obsolete.  
Is this it?


	119. Praying for Expired Time

Forlorn is our excuse  
of obsolete abuse.  
The mind fall into mind,  
the depth of wells, wheels  
kind abide in reels,  
the crimes are undermined,  
they chime in, the time  
is near, the time is near.  
Our hour is up! the clock calls,  
our hour is up,  
dire draught is doubt  
in man, in God, in loud  
drought! The thirst  
is short, the edge's first  
fall, the first wall  
crumbles, a fire call  
cancelled, false alarm,  
false witness, false charm,  
falsity in all  
\- Then why do we doubt the fall?  
Oh, the pipe dream,  
the beauty in a cream-  
coloured haze, the awe inside the daze,  
the face within, the maze  
of faulted sights, which  
is right and which is lie?  
Replace then happiness with fear,  
laughter with a shrill,  
the living with a kill,  
forlorn is the excuse,  
neglecting the confused  
child, obscenely  
choosing to diffuse  
the soul,  
or what of it is chewed.  
Help! God!  
Give us one more day  
of carnage just so we can pray,  
give us one more hour  
to find ourselves  
in life, in mind, in ardour,  
give us one more second  
to cry, for tear's our only weapon!...  
But our time is up,  
But our time is up...


	120. Beautiful Little Victim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the story of Susan Condry, a six year old victim of an alleged 1972 Ted Bundy murder

Don't cry, little girl,  
you father is not far from here.  
He'll be back, little girl,  
don't you fret your heart, my dear.  
The flakes fall gently, little world,  
outside your room upon the sill,  
the sky weeps for you, my girl,  
it cries in endless whites surreal,  
for so real it seems to me  
that yesterday your mind was here,  
yet so clear it is today  
that your poor prayer's far away.  
Why don't you sing a song?  
You pray the Lord your soul to keep,  
but say, darling, of the thorns,  
a rose's beauty failed your needs.  
For so loud was your tune,  
that passers-by trespassed your room,  
so sweet was your melody  
that they reached out your soul to reap,  
you tripped and fell  
oh no what dread  
for the snow now tainted with red,  
the ribbons in your hair have fled,  
they lie around and paint your head  
in crimson stripes among blonde strands,  
torn blue dress clutched in your hands.  
The neighbours stop and stare,  
they're asking why you are so bare,  
so alone and oh so scared,  
for father hasn't returned of yet.  
They bypassed care, but now they cry,  
for what they see seems a sore sight:  
Heaven reflected in your eyes,  
still as glass, a doll's surprise,  
when she heard God's lullaby...


	121. Faceless (Fără Față)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

Dreaded being without soul,  
without patience or strong will,  
you may down in your own breath  
and you drown in it while sleeping.

On crisp bent wire you learn best  
to fall, to fall, and never die,  
as you alone gather the seams  
of splintered thoughts, yours to recede.

Go back to bed, little one,  
I do not want to see you.

(Cumplită ființare fără suflet,  
fără cumpăt sau voință,  
tu te culci în al tău suflu  
și te-neci în el dormind.

Pe sârmă frântă te înveți  
să cazi, să cazi, și să nu mori,  
căci tu numai cuprinzi  
gândurile tale sparte.

Culcă-te la loc, micuțo,  
eu nu vreau să te văd.)


	122. Cadaver (Afloat)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pelagian = synonym for sea (rare)  
> Pelagianism is a heterodox Christian theological position which holds that the original sin did not taint human nature and that humans have the free will to achieve human perfection without divine grace.

If I were to sit on a cliff overlooking the sea,  
my laughter would break in waves and fall  
on the cross-cut rocks of the breeze,  
my moans would cuss the foam  
to cover moanas and haste seize.  
And in the rotten smell of the seaweed,  
I'd splutter all my crude breath,  
I'd look upon the carrion,  
the one to carry me midway.  
For I am a thalassophile  
and in pelagian salt buries  
my all decaying needs.  
If I were to throw myself and hit my head against the wall,  
that would be the cornerstone  
for all that was and would have been,  
for if I were to set sail on the sea,  
you alone, sweet cadaver, I would take away with me.


	123. Catechism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Aurelio Voltaire's "Almost Human"

What did I ever do  
to you?

To be forsaken from the altar,  
to be repelled, and condemned for tar,  
scorching my feet, tap-tap-tap on char-  
But it is you  
who blaspheme and abuse,  
you that say darkness in fire prevails,  
I came to tell  
where I come from nothing remains  
untouched by cold, frigid hands  
of hell, nothing remains...  
-But what is hell?  
Where is the cavil tale?  
How should I know, I've never seen it,  
it is you who can conceive it,  
don't expect  
not for a moment  
for my regrets.  
I sought out pleasure  
and they've given me command,  
I sought her lamp,  
I was replete and still for more I'd stand,  
I sought out power,  
yes, power!  
for-how-else-could-I-have-had-what-she-had-and-in-solitude-demand  
and was given naught,  
for naught I left, deserted  
of all that I've been sent,  
should I repent?

But what did I ever do  
so wrong?

I am a wanderer through worlds without a song,  
I come and go  
as the questers call me  
horned,  
conspicuous  
yet will you look at me?  
Aren't I another from the one you seek?  
Aren't I immaculate and true  
-Or do you prefer a mauled  
beast, to feast your eyes upon,  
do you prefer a fraud?  
Do you crave for deceit,  
endless perversion of exhibit,  
do you prefer a lie?  
Yet will you look at me?  
Aren't I another from the one you need?  
Aren't I impeccable and full-

What did I ever do  
to you?


	124. The Last Revolt and Repent

I am placed  
in a here of no existence,  
spaceless place and timeless hour,  
to float in non-body for as long as  
my soul allows it,  
to float throughout the warped  
sheet of the world, unmoved.  
And the shelter's grey  
\- or is it deathless peril? -  
white mist coveting the eyes,  
I have no eyes,  
blank fog censoring my words,  
I have no lips,  
bleached black silencing the silence,  
but where are my ears.  
There is little here that I find  
real, there is so much  
more that I imagine.  
I wish for creeping thoughts of  
resolution, resolved in redolence,  
I wish for remembrance of me, I wish  
I once more was.  
I might be imagining myself.  
I wish I could cry  
when you touch my head,  
I wish I could die  
again, again,  
forever, I wish I could kiss you  
once more so I can remember  
what it is I miss,  
I wish I could grab at your hand  
\- how did you make yourself in here  
if I am not  
and here is not  
how can you be the sole  
constant in ruin without end -  
I wish I could yell  
Forgive me  
Forgive me  
Forgive me  
God!...

Your hand is still atop my head.  
I close my eyes.


	125. In Contempt

Which is God and which is man?  
One is sea and one is sand,  
One awaits and one compels,  
One creates, one shatters shells,  
but they both like to be quiet,  
yes they both like to be quiet,  
so very quiet I might sink.

And in silence there is  
power,  
And in concrete there is  
power,  
And in blackness there is  
power,  
So much more than I can stand.  
And in speechlessness  
I deafen,  
pry my ears away from  
heaven,  
pry them both, 'cause I'm so tired,  
pry my eyes, for I surrender,  
As I only see remains,  
As I only see remains.

Pry my heart  
and see it beating,  
step on it  
and see it bleeding,  
crushed and calloused  
from the rope  
around the veins,  
the throbs of shard,  
as I confused the wine with heart,  
I could not tell them apart,  
for what is mould  
and what is art?

Let me tell you,  
they're the same!  
Life in death and life in shame,  
they are both black and decayed,  
As I only see remains,  
As I only see remains.


	126. Borderline

I bit my lip  
so hard  
that it split  
in two

Yeah I bit my lip  
while thinking of you  
thinking of how  
you would rip me  
if you knew

But the copper taste  
is old  
I crave for  
something new  
something not quite  
sublime  
but not quite decaying too

Will you do me a favour  
Will you  
step on my footsole  
wrapped in the sheet  
and then kiss it  
with tender deceit?

Yeah step on it  
crush it  
until it bleeds  
until it splits  
just like  
my lip  
then kiss it

Yeah, just like that


	127. Message to an Authentic Fool

Authenticity is overrated.

That is what you say  
while you transcribe a line  
or two,  
you sniff it  
and then  
what?  
You think it is a dream?  
You think, perhaps,  
that we're all waiting for the story  
teller to speak their  
originally copied mind.  
Perhaps you think you are some oracle,  
mouthpiece of the dead,  
slandering their final thoughts  
expressing them beyond their grave.  
Perhaps - and I'm taking a leap here -  
you know nothing.  
Perhaps you are a fool,  
and you seek what's already been found,  
you crave for everlasting life  
yet it is death you yourself surround.  
Perhaps the well anointed cup of blood  
that you drink with enormous gulps  
is just a flood  
of crimson sin.  
Perhaps it will kill you,  
and then  
what?  
Where will your immortality go?  
Will it be preserved,  
passed from man to man,  
conserved,  
just like some can of meat,  
for when some poor fellow is of it in need?  
Write then  
down your words,  
drown them  
in a small child's blood,  
drink them and then burn them,  
by some (mis)fortune you might catch fire too.


	128. Resistance

When I had sex with you,  
I did not care for you.  
In fact, I wasn't compliant.  
You would knock down my door,  
thudding so diligently  
so that I would hear.  
You'd trap me in the darkness  
and force me into fear,  
you would beat me  
until I bled  
if it didn't go your way.  
If I tried to run,  
you'd command me to stay.  
You'd strip me, ripping clothes  
and shattering remains  
of soul  
so that I could never leave.  
Never leave, you think?  
I left.  
My body left.  
I'd like to believe that.  
But my soul?  
No no no.  
Never my soul.  
It endured  
in a hotel room  
in a mansion's catacomb  
and made of it a tomb.  
I'd like to think that I left,  
but no.  
Even if I did,  
you'd still follow.  
You would creep,  
you'd make me swallow  
all complains,  
for even when I scream  
there's no one near,  
even if I'd squealed,  
do you think they'd hear?  
You know they wouldn't.  
I have learnt to make no noise,  
to curse you  
but in silence  
just the way you like it.  
I have learnt to sit still  
in the shower, when you come  
so that I don't slip on faience.  
I am a dutiful student  
and I wish to pass  
but I think this school ends  
only when one of us is dead.


	129. Phenomenon

I know you.  
Yes, I know you, I have seen you  
once or twice before  
on a stage  
grander than all,  
in a small hotel room  
before a mirror,  
it is all the same, a strange  
phenomenon, your movement,  
so strange  
that you are nothing  
when you move.  
You are nothing,  
just the tempest  
and its eye.  
Yes, I know you.  
For a quick second, I see you,  
then you're gone.  
Now I have to replace you  
with the sum of all the somethings  
that I believe you to be.


	130. A-Tempo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A-Tempo = no time; in time; to return to the tempo from the beinning of a song
> 
> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

I don't have time for life,  
I have to fall in void,  
to fall, to rise,  
I'm dead leaf on the ride  
to soil, I am  
vermin in the muck,  
I'm stuck like a word  
that no longer knows how to leave the mouth,  
I'm a leaf  
and I no longer know to fall,  
I no longer have time,  
there's no more time,  
and life passes by,  
and I  
reflect on it  
and cry.

(Nu am timp de viață,  
trebuie să cad in gol,  
să cad, să mă scol,  
sunt frunză moartă-n drum  
spre pământ, sunt  
vierme în mocirlă,  
mă zbat ca un cuvânt  
ce nu mai știe să iasă pe gură,  
sunt o frunză  
și nu mai știu să cad,  
nu mai am timp,  
nu mai e timp,  
și viața se duce,  
iar eu  
mă gândesc la ea  
și o plâng.)


	131. Nihil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

Child,  
don't you know who I am?  
Don't you know I'm non-man?  
I could have you crushed  
if that was what I wished,  
I could have you stepped  
on, your spine to freeze  
as a chair, to wheeze  
in wait for my feed.  
I could have you absolved  
of all that wasn't solved  
of all sins yet unknown  
by your untainted soul.  
I could have you eaten  
and get it over with.  
Hm? What do you say?  
Do you want delay  
and let me have my way?  
It doesn't matter what you tell me  
anyway, as what I crave  
is above what you dismay,  
always.

(Copilule,  
tu nu știi cine sunt?  
Tu nu stii că sunt crunt?  
Te-aş putea zdrobi  
dacă asta aș dori,  
te-aș putea călca  
pe spinare, să îngheți  
ca un scaun, să m-aștepți  
să vin și să te-nfulec.  
Te-aș putea ierta  
de toate cele nefăcute  
de păcate neștiute  
de mintea ta curată.  
Te-aș putea mânca  
și-atunci aș scăpa de-o grijă.  
Hm? Ce zici?  
Vrei să te complici  
și să mi te-opui?  
Nu contează ce îmi spui  
oricum, căci ce vreau eu  
e deasupra a ce vrei,  
mereu.)


	132. Smell to High Heaven

Are you the death note?  
Do you wear a black robe?  
Or is it red?  
Crimson, like the blood?  
Ha!  
I knew it!  
So you are a scattered ghost  
that survived ages of flowers' mould,  
the mould turned into blossom  
and it smells like fragrance  
once more,  
you are the petal come from soil  
and there's no reason to recoil  
when you smell so very tempting,  
sweet refute.  
Ah, yes!  
The smell of death  
beckons me to hold my breath,  
and I reckon that you dread  
when I crave for your death bed.


	133. Delusion of Grandeur

Will you listen to me?  
Your made-up trinity  
has fallen.  
It wasn't because of its sanctity,  
but of its long-lived depravity.  
So you thought  
that a goat and a snake and a snott  
are enough of a concoct  
for church?  
You thought them so vile  
that you walked them down the aisle,  
you wed them, a quick pile  
of dirt, some candle wax  
to pour upon a girl's left breast,  
was it enough?  
How much more  
horror and affliction  
do you think would be sufficient?  
How much more  
made-up lore  
and fiction,  
how much more bad press  
for beasts, efficent  
to men, eaters of men,  
how much more distress?  
Will you listen to me?  
No, you won't.  
You are deaf and long have shed  
your ears, devoured by ideas,  
you long have stopped listening,  
whistling down the road  
in expensive cars and sold-out souls,  
but the street comes to an end  
and the spirit can't pretend  
to be decent.  
Well.  
What will you do?


	134. Indiscrete

Let me down on the wet floor  
Darling leap  
Lay the fruit on the table  
Carry me  
There aren't many bottles of flavour  
Left on the shelves, so bring me a few  
There aren't many tastes I could savour  
Pluck then for me all the cherries

Oh, darling tree

Debacle debates, my left eye and right one  
They witnessed my downfall for twenty a year  
Now labour is hard and heart's even harder  
Throw me some bottles to have no worries  
Snowdrops fall prudent outside the window  
The glass shatters loudly inside the tomb  
The room sighs, the shards lacking in sorrow  
The mourning's been wiped by cherry liqueur

Oh, redbud tree

Don't look at me, I'm only breathing  
Don't look at me, I'm indiscrete

Lay us down in the garden  
Let us pray  
Saviour's words in our pardon  
Sweet replay  
The cup is full, don't let it pass us  
The only means to whatever's true  
Life's overdue, let it then pass us  
All its misgivings, replete restitute

Don't look at me, I'm only dreaming  
Don't look at me, I'm unpristine

Don't look at me, I'm only sleeping  
Don't look at me, I'm obsolete


	135. Novelty

I am hungry, my dear.  
Will you let me eat?  
Now now, come here.  
I wish better to see  
what it is, this  
smell  
that I sense when you are near,  
I want to serve it  
as my main course  
each morning  
and in the night, hoarse  
longing, yes, I shall devour it  
and see how I revel  
when nothing else is satisfying  
but your sweet and sour smell.


	136. Moths and Myths

The halls are empty, caulked with moths,  
The moth, the moth, who lives in cloth,  
The lonely friend of rigs and stones,  
It sits in corners, chaperones  
Every syringe that bathes in blood,  
Filled with white chalk, with cornerstones,  
The sleep deprived and vague restored,  
A surgery, and nothing more.

I pride and hold myself in all of my accomplishments,  
Yet every word uttered by them, I fall at every comment.  
The needle pestles in purity, pristine  
To echo that which has never been.


	137. Debris Display

Your face has been devoured by the wolves.  
I can see into your brain.  
I am wondering about the pain,  
about its measure of sustain,  
when the time has come for crane  
to eat off of your remains.  
I wonder if they will recall  
your face, your features, softer than all  
their grimaces, misleading crawl  
under the floor, over the wall.  
Yeah, I can see into your core,  
the heart's been eaten in the carnage,  
so no more relics to be salvaged  
but for your brain, quintessence of soul.


	138. Breaker

Will you stop picking the lock?  
It is well past one o'clock  
And you're waking up my neighbours  
With your ill-advised maneuvers.

Can you not for once just knock?  
No, of course not, what have I thought,  
It is much easier to break  
And when you come, to only take.

And what of those who shall survive?  
Am I amongst them, do I comply?  
Or am I simply to abide?

I might as well  
die, die, die


	139. Dumb, So Very Dumb

Some people are dumb,  
twiddling around  
eating the ground  
that others have walked upon,  
only to spit it later on  
when it's no longer of use.  
They are  
so very dumb,  
that I feel myself coward away  
from their insolent existence.  
If there's something I can't stand,  
then it must be the dumb people.


	140. Wound Me (Doare-mă)

Your shoulder is terrifying, my dear.  
It is warm, hot even.  
In what hour do we find ourselves?

Of decline,  
word arrives,  
Of border and of grave,  
nothing shall be left  
very soon, very soon

In cross bless me,  
as I cross you,  
in crossroad  
and crucifix,

Love me,  
as me I love,  
with needs  
and with outrage,

Wound me,  
as I you wound,  
with death  
and with dreams  
splintered  
by death,

Kill us  
and thus  
nothing shall be left  
in peace.

(Umărul tău este terifiant, iubire.  
Este cald, aproape ars.  
În ce ceas ne aflăm?

De declin,  
vine-un cuvânt,   
De hotar și de mormânt,  
nimic nu va mai fi  
în curând, în curând 

Închină-mă,  
așa cum te închin eu,  
în chin  
și cruce,

Iubește-mă,  
așa cum mă iubesc eu,  
cu nevoi  
și cu furie,

Doare-mă,  
așa cum te dor eu,  
cu moarte  
si cu vise  
sparte  
de moarte,

Omoară-ne  
și așa  
nimic nu va mai fi  
în pace.)


	141. Conceal

Pain me  
so I can paint you  
a picture  
so small,  
a portrait  
for all my vacancies,  
to fill them up with you.

And the gaps, gaping  
at the luxury of you,  
luscious labels  
and perfume,  
to consume what was  
and has dissolved,

to kill, to kill, to kill,

and like Lazarus to rise  
above all,  
for if God were to let you go,  
there would be nothing left,

but death, but death, but death,

and a small portrait  
in a locked drawer.


	142. Pantleg

Let me grab at your pantleg,  
rip it off,  
rip it to shreds!

I see your calves are bit  
in half  
by nails, digging  
in the thew,  
the meat is heavy, met in weld,  
it's crude, and callous,  
let me delve my teeth  
in the pant hem,  
rip it to shreds, rip it to shreds,

as I don't think you'd mind,  
no,  
you'd cry,  
you'd pull my hair  
and I, as your eternal self,  
would sigh.


	143. Antithesis

I think I might be going mad.  
I wish to lie,  
yet I crave to stand.

I think  
I don't know what I want  
as my desires are  
exclusively exclusive  
of each other,  
at the same time, in the same hour,

I need to drink some wine,  
but I yen for something sour,

I need to be soothed  
after I am brutally molested,

I need, and yet I am replete,  
nothing's left, nothing's left,

I want it all,  
the nothing,  
the despair,  
the sleep,  
the arousal,  
the dull repair,  
What am I to do?  
I am tired, but insomnia is sleeplessness'  
lover,  
I'm awake, I close my eyes  
and dream.


	144. The Stupor

The experience of life  
requires and anaesthetic,  
to drool and to march  
on your footsole prosthetics.

In cascades we pour  
another glass and synthetic  
food for our soul,  
and for the face some cosmetics.

And what if I can't sleep?  
Whatever for are the narcotics  
but for dead dreams  
and for neurotics?

Whatever for would I take milk  
if not hide it under silk,  
Whatever for would I freeze myself  
unless I wanted life  
in death and then again?

Whatever for?  
The anaesthetic says it all,  
it dims the senses and conplains,  
whatever's left is a dull pain,  
and the well maintained  
aesthetic.


	145. Leave of Absence

Copy me in a carton,  
for the matrix shall be gone  
in a moment, ray once shone  
will be left outside my home.

I'll desert all that I've known  
to get away, alone, alone  
to mourn at sea my soul,  
my soul to pledge before wet stones  
of grafit, to bemoan  
what once was light, and now is coal.

Save my body in a box,  
my mind, taunted with grand thoughts,  
is pulled apart from waves and rocks,  
they taunt it, recollect and scorn  
what I once had and now they own:

The sane belief and crass ardour,  
the aloneness in its stardom,  
the interest in brain of carbon  
and my spirit in a pardon.


	146. No Mind, No Fear, No Care

Look at my face: it's a blank page.  
I have written on it once,  
but the ink has smudged  
since then.  
Rip the paper, you might find  
the soul.  
But no, another sheet of white  
stands there, alone,  
another  
martyr of a known  
tyrant-  
the sentiment, the dire  
resemtment  
washed away by lack of thought,  
mad, I'm mad! I'm free at last,  
I can no longer smile  
or fast,  
I can no longer whiff the dust,  
I can rest, yes, dull rest  
in peace long after my own death.

To fear death is a choice.  
I fear nothing.  
Not even life.


	147. Cannot (Nu mai)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

Let me  
die  
at last!  
Why don't you get  
that I can't stand it?  
That I don't want, I don't believe  
in all,  
that I don't feel  
at all,  
I cannot bear,  
I lie  
that I am, as I am not  
ever, I don't exist  
but in a grave,  
I am a blank page,  
I am a bare body,  
I am just a malady  
contagious, and I can kill you.  
Then fucking let me  
no longer be  
in peace!

(Lasă-mă  
să mor  
odată!  
Ce nu-nțelegi  
că nu mai pot?  
Că nu mai vreau, că nu mai cred  
în tot,  
că nu mai simt  
nimic,  
nu mai suport,  
mă mint  
că sunt, căci eu nu sunt  
nicicând, eu nu exist  
decât într-un mormânt,  
sunt o pagină goală,  
sunt un corp gol,  
sunt numai o boală  
contagioasă, și pot să te omor.  
Atunci lasă-mă dracului  
să nu mai fiu  
în pace!)


	148. Headache

Eh, why does it matter?  
Take away my headache  
with a small rapture

Short, I don't want it  
to last long,  
not enough so I can savour,  
what a horrible thought!

Make it so,  
that I am left alone  
with a migraine  
one shoe  
an empty bottle  
and a condom,  
make it short,  
and quick  
so I can't tell  
if I'm cured or if I'm sick,

Make it hurt  
fast stab and run  
from the scene of the crime,  
and when you're finished  
leave me for the dead,  
as I am done with the living  
\- they take too long in bed.


	149. Simple (Simplu)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar"
> 
> Originally written in English, later translated into Romanian

Oh, fuck.  
I've done it again.  
I managed not to fall  
asleep, and now  
my brain is made  
of mush  
and the soul is dead, or  
at least numb,  
I don't know,  
I dont care,  
I don't  
really notice any difference,  
but once I hit the floor,  
I can  
fall  
no  
further.

(La dracu.  
Am făcut-o din nou.  
Am reușit să nu cad  
în somn, și acum  
creierul mi-e  
din lână  
și sufletul e-n țărână, sau  
măcar amorțit,  
nu prea știu,  
nu-mi prea pasă,  
nu prea  
văd vreo diferență,  
dar odată ce lovesc podeaua,  
nu pot  
să cad  
mai  
mult.)


	150. Sanctum

Isn't it so  
that taking one's life  
is the path toward redemption?  
For what else is death  
but an art  
liberating of all God's will,  
freedom  
to those seeking solace  
in bodily temples and in malice.  
For what else is there  
but thankfulness  
for the damage?  
If God is watching,  
then we might as well  
entertain.


	151. No Shame

Your breasts are bare;  
soft beeswax tickles them;  
it is night and there's the water.  
Have you no shame?  
No,  
no,  
no,  
no shame for the guiltless,  
no guilt for the free.

If I ask you of the gold,  
you'll dip your fingers in the river  
and say  
'The chest is open.  
Come and see.'  
No, no,  
no guilt for the free,  
no shame, no shame.


	152. Enemy, won't you

Enemy, enemy,  
won't you congratulate me  
for my numerous apologies  
to all those whom I've lost,  
and all that which I've sent  
away, away,  
to sail as ships on windless seas,  
won't you  
punish my thoughts  
for daring  
to speak, won't you  
slap my lips  
apart, won't you kiss them,  
red flag, white flag,  
carnal truce and quiet stab,

enemy, enemy


	153. Summer, Midscent

She smokes perfumed cigarettes,  
never ordinary,  
and listens to jazz records.  
Sometimes the summer sandals,  
green, evergreen,  
get stuck in a beat  
against the floorboard,  
on repeat, on repeat,  
like the vynil, there she spins, there she spins,  
and the smokescreen is a veil  
for her everbearing wings  
in the corner of her eyes,  
for the corner of her mouth, a dimple,  
for a smile,  
for the stub thrown on the wood,  
for her bare shoulder, hot, hot,  
that feels the night, alive behind  
turned backs, closed lids,  
for a summer dress,  
a sultry dream,  
a cigarette  
consumed,  
a melody,  
a foot  
in a sandal  
on the sandalwood.


	154. I (Am)

I am the crocodile of the river.  
I am the river of life;  
I am the life  
and the love,  
I am the death, and the  
afterward, I am  
the rise and the fall,  
I am the baroness,  
I am the sultan.  
I am the serpent,  
and the serpent's teeth,  
I am the mistress,  
and the woman's seed,  
I am the lover, and lover's revenge,  
I am the edge,  
I am the blinded blade,  
I am the tear  
in the corner of the mouth,  
I am the song  
and the dance I dance to it.  
I am the magician;  
I am the hummingbird,  
I am the mortician  
and the dead man's boat,  
I am the fire  
and in your hand I burn,  
I am your self,  
eternal, I am  
the mother, and I am epicene.  
I am the cry, and the moan,  
I am,  
I am,  
I am,  
I might convince myself  
or at least I want to be.  
Perhaps I'll have to deal with facts,  
the fact that only  
"I"  
without "am"  
is me.


	155. The Darkest Hour

There is no death,  
yet only death is nigh.  
Night is close  
to an end, the dawn  
has been waiting for an eternity  
to appear.  
There is no death, it's just  
the nagging feeling in the corners  
of my mind,  
lurking  
as a blackness  
\- once it's there  
and then it's gone -,  
expecting to devour  
all life.  
There is no death, no,  
it's just the madness  
that makes it seem so.


	156. Ha.

Inhabiting the nothingness,  
I go off  
and grab me  
by the neck.

(Trăind în nimicnicie,  
eu mă duc  
și mă apuc  
de gât.)


	157. Mindless

What is a thought?

It is a grain.

What's an idea?

It is a beach.

What's satisfaction?

It is the sea.

Come then, satisfy  
my unquenchable needs,  
take the thought  
out of mind,  
spoil it into  
a breeze,  
ripe till rotten,  
rip it and then swallow  
my lungs' last breath,  
a final wail  
of wounded creature on the shore,  
step on me  
and gulp  
whatever's left behind,  
whatever moan, whatever  
unkind insult,  
because it all is left for you,  
the will of the dying,  
just before a small demise  
without mourning,  
to return on such short notice  
to come and come again.


	158. Garden for Bella

Fire dug your grave too deep.  
Fresh soil, plant in  
a fresh seed.  
Black earth to swallow your  
black hair,  
turned red and black skin,  
turned white from the cold air.  
Yet from the warm tomb  
a small flower shall bloom,  
from the short grass and  
wet sod, insipid perfume.

There's a knock on my garden:  
peonies and peonies  
at the window,  
what else?


	159. Do not disturb.

Today is the last day  
on the face of the earth.

We die and we speak  
as if death's our last reward,  
as if  
the distance to walk is so very short,  
from desert to shore, from essence  
to naught.

All our dances,  
all our carefully chosen words,  
to cover the silence.

Alone, alone, alone.


	160. Blind-flight

Will you ever read you in my words?  
Probably not.  
You are blind,  
blind as an owl  
in clear sunlight,  
and just as the preybird,  
you fly in great heights;  
you just might, you just might  
catch the snake in the night.  
No flight, no flight  
for the blind owl,  
its wings are rotten,  
its feathers - burnt.  
Come, come, it doesn't matter  
if you've no eyes to decipher,  
but sing me a song,  
sing it  
with the passion  
of a predator, pretend  
that it is night  
and I'm the serpent.


	161. The Fox (Vulpea)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

Tatiana, Tatiana,  
you glance bizarre at those around  
to sniff a vice that can be found,  
like a fox to burden yourself  
with commentaries and lament,  
in your side to keep a hide  
of all the good you've unreplied,  
all the nothing that is all,  
all the depth that's unresolved;  
with the weight of your splendour  
you carry ashen life's ardour:  
your very eyes, green and sour,  
are the weapon of the devil.

(Tatiana, Tatiana,  
te uiți bizar la cei din jur  
să le-adulmeci vreun cusur,  
ca o vulpe să te-ncarci  
cu osânde și remarci,  
în sine-tău să ții ascuns  
tot binele nerăspuns,  
tot nimicul ce e tot,  
tot adâncul nemaifost;  
cu chinul splendorii tale  
porți acul vieții fatale:  
ochii tăi, verzi amărui,  
sunt arma diavolului.)


	162. Malignity

The streets are empty.  
The smell of death is foul  
and it can snatch you in an hour.

What else  
do you wish for  
but an empty glass, an empty house, an empty soul?

Cleanse yourself of all regrets, come  
for everlasting rest  
out in the street, reeking

Danger! Danger!  
The sound of weeps vomiting the vowels  
in the wind.

It becomes you, the fear of life,  
for malignity is near and like a beast  
it can forfeit your adolescence  
of the mind.

The coffee's fetid, and in your room  
decaying hand clenches the broom  
to wash away all illnesses  
at your putrid  
faith's  
expenses.


	163. Deformity

The knot is too thick to swallow, the morn

Is dense, and like the shallow  
Sense, it deepens if you look at it

Too long.

Our cretin movement is so quick,  
A glance, a chance

Mistook,  
Denied the dance of soft romance,

It sickens me.  
No, no, the kisses chaste are but a waste! What a bore,

What an idiom of idiocy this life can be.  
I cannot bear it.

Don't you command your own?  
I know I do.  
I tell them to crawl

Out of my brain, to prowl  
For some river drain, a stream

Of clear concrete beneath the skin, lumps and bumps,  
A brawl

Between surrender and demand.  
No, no,

Still I cannot bear it, so I'll die instead  
Of calmly waiting for your end.


	164. Hallucinogen

Delusions,  
delusions everywhere.

What a calamity,  
what a ruse!

I see you on a tree bark,  
I spot you in the oak leaves,  
readying to leave and join the humid ground.  
I see your face in every portrait  
and I want to bawl my eyes out.  
Why can't you be silent,  
like any other ghost or phantom,  
and let me be?

What a calamity,  
what a fuse.

Darling, if only you knew  
how to keep your mouth shut, shut  
like the grave you've been buried into.


	165. The Box

Somehow, I'll have to pull myself together.  
The stitches, I'm afraid, are torn to shreds.  
Their remains have been burnt.  
It is of no importance. The small stuffed toy  
is obsolete and needs to be replaced,  
eventually.  
I'll throw it in a box till then,  
thinking someone else might want it,  
the one-eyed doll of porcelain  
with which no one's ever played with.  
It's decorative, I know, its beauty,  
and now it vanished and became a futility.  
What an absurdity! However, I have to conform,  
or else a box awaits me as well.


	166. Lightbulb (Bec)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

Hang yourself by a  
lightbulb, I am no longer   
able to drown you.

(Spânzură-te de  
un bec, eu nu-s în stare  
să te mai înec.)


	167. Folk

At the end of times all gods  
shall rise from their graves  
and walk the earth.  
And if they find not their temples,  
they shall inhabit the air  
and, like imaginary machines,  
they will feel nothing when they leave.  
For the gods are silent,  
and they crave more  
than that which has been given to them,  
since, just as mortals, they too die  
and wake again.


	168. Still, The Hustle

In that dark place  
on the other side of the world,  
beneath it one might say,  
a whisper:

Touch this organ,  
lifeless  
and  
useless,  
pumping blood still, like a funnel  
of steel;

and, after you're done  
spitting on its remains,  
give it back;  
I've no need for it, even so  
I wish to keep it  
and see  
how  
much  
longer  
it  
can  
go.


	169. Default

The cigarette burns by itself,  
it has no use for you, holder, to survive.  
It can carry itself in the wind,  
it can fly,  
and it can land on my left breast  
and die.

The ash it leaves behind smells of acerbic acid,  
the meat's delicious now, with a black dot in the centre,  
aesthetically pleasing.

In your wet dreams the flame goes  
quiet, and in the silence  
my voice breaks like a china doll,  
one-eyed and old, meant for the dumpster.

What would it take for you to go?  
Nothing, there's nothing more

to give, I've nothing left  
but a pack of cigarettes, lying

somewhere in the mud.  
Have courage now, Look! The rain has not yet stopped,  
it might just wash away the filth, the muck,  
and the burn.

In every droplet there's an image, focus and you should be replete,  
for the picture is complete, it's filled with diamonds and with headstones.

I wish that you would trip on some rained-on stone

and fall to your impending end,  
a galaxy in mild content,

for I, contemptuous, resent  
the one who in my body lives  
and never pays the rent.


	170. Mumble

You have to make a living,  
but you can never live.  
What, don't you believe me?  
Hear this: thistles shall grow out of your ears  
and your orbs shall be two beans,  
like candlewax, melted and detracting  
onto the cold tiles of the floor.  
You will no longer see a thing,  
let alone a soul.  
You will serve a sentence, alone, in a prison cell  
across the corridor; are you not  
familiar with the hall?  
Oh, this? This is just a wall,  
to keep you far apart  
from your bliss and pleasure goal.  
Oh, you? You are just a small  
waste of time and of thin space,  
you have no purpose here  
but to make a living  
and to slowly die, just as I intended.  
Don't cry, you can do  
nothing  
about it.


	171. The Bell (Clopotul)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

Libertines are many,  
yet liberty is scarce.  
We lie on the bench  
and wait for it to pass.  
What?  
What sort of illness?  
If we shatter a boat  
and enter the jar,  
perhaps we'll find out;  
perhaps we'll know  
how stupid we can be,  
how very foolish and naïve,  
how much passive  
in our two-bit martyrdom,  
how full of deceit  
in face of the past-glass sea.  
Perhaps we'll birth ideas  
of more worth than a pence,  
perhaps we'll burn them,  
perhaps we'll do what we want  
\- that, if we first figure out what.

(Libertini sunt mulți,  
dar libertate-i puțină.  
Ne întindem pe bancă  
și-aşteptãm să ne treacă.  
Ce?  
Ce fel de boală?  
Dacă spargem o barcă  
și intrăm în borcan,  
poate vom afla;  
poate vom ști  
cât de proști putem fi,  
cât de fraieri și naivi,  
cât de pasivi  
în martiriul nostru de doi bani,  
cât de parșivi  
în fața mării dincolo de sticlă.  
Poate vom naște idei  
mai valoroase de doi lei,  
poate le vom da foc,  
poate vom face ce vrem  
\- asta dacă aflăm, mai întâi, ce e.)


	172. Orbis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Orbis = orb, circle, world (Latin)
> 
> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

a snail gets on a charriot  
it struggles to keep up  
with the path full of muck

with the cigarette smoke  
that cuts our eyes in two  
trying to get out  
the window

out a door off its hinges  
fallen due to an earthquake

due to a fist

the guilty comes in and weeps

rabid dogs that drown us  
Cerberus at the gate  
looks at us with pity  
and barks  
thinks we pretend that we're afraid

we don't pretend

we don't know what awaits us  
so we run before it

perhaps we'll catch it

perhaps we'll fall

and manage to get run over  
by a wheel  
by a charriot  
in which a snail awaits us

(un melc se suie-ntr-o caleașcă  
se zbate să țină pasul  
cu drumul plin de mocirlă

cu scrumul de țigară  
ce ne taie-n două ochii  
încercând să iasă-afară  
pe fereastră

pe o ușă scoasă din balamale  
căzută din cauza unui cutremur

din cauza unui pumn

vinovatul intră și suspină

câini turbați care ne-neacă  
Cerberus la poartă  
se uită la noi cu milă   
și latră  
crede că ne prefacem că ne e frică

nu ne prefacem

nu știm ce ne-așteaptă  
așa că fugim înaintea-i

poate-l prindem

poate cădem

și reușim să fim călcați  
de o roată  
de caleașcă  
în care ne-așteaptă-un melc)


	173. Instant

The kitchen stove  
\- what a hellhole.  
All the buttons left open,  
salvage what you can,  
salvage your art,  
and your words,  
and your soul,  
that is all you care for.

Hurry, no more time  
to waste, no more letters,  
no more colour,  
all is burnt  
away, cross-dress of life,  
design of a bird,  
let it die, let it die,  
and leave on your accord.


	174. Cork

You spit me out  
like a cork,  
oh, lover,  
don't you want me?

I float nearby  
your luscious thigh;  
a bite of wave,  
a salted mouth,  
a warm tooth  
\- that's all I care about.

Are you not curious of my conceptions?  
Do you not find them ludicrous?

Well.

Let me but dive then,  
just the once,  
and then I'll return to the surface,  
like the cork  
of the bottle  
you're drinking from  
and in which we drown.


	175. Nadir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nadir = counterpart (Arabic); the point on the celestial sphere directly below an observer
> 
> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

you came with fog before  
as a lip-balm  
as a breeze  
you came with a dead leaf  
and a crumpled shirt  
you came as a shrew  
looking down at them stupids  
at all kiss-asses  
that suck your foot  
then spit it when its use is due  
you came  
so that i see you  
so that you see me  
you trickled like a tear  
like a stream  
of struggle of sea of spring of mountain of whatever  
you came so you can go  
you came so you can die  
you came so that i kill you  
and i didn't want to  
as i know better what you want than you

(veneai cu ceață înainte  
ca un balsam de buze  
ca o boare  
veneai cu o frunză moartă  
și o cămașă șifonată  
veneai ca o scârbă  
uitându-te de sus la ăilalți proști  
la toți lingăii  
care-ți sorb piciorul  
şi ți-l scuipă când nu ma'-i de folos  
veneai  
ca să te văd  
ca să mă vezi  
curgeai ca o lacrimă  
ca un şuvoi  
de chin de mare de izvor de munte de orice  
veneai ca să pleci  
veneai ca să mori  
veneai să te omor  
și eu n-am vrut  
căci știu mai bine ce vrei tu)


	176. Lu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

With sky ahead,  
rotten teeth taint your name,  
they spit it on graves,  
on pavements,  
expecting just judgement,  
a clean act  
to come out their bitter mouth,  
since they know better than you  
who you are,  
what you've done,  
what you think

With blink blinked in distance  
missed  
as any other sea,  
at last now you wake from non-being,  
you clean yourself of tar  
from their imaginings  
and dress yourself in copper,  
in a thought,  
in a white light,  
like a face of moon unfull  
whose you try to guess a shape  
and shade.

(Cu cerul înainte,  
dinți stricați îți spurcă numele,  
ți-l scuipă pe morminte,  
pe trotuare,  
așteptând o judecată justă,  
o faptă curată  
să iasă din gura lor amară,  
căci ei știu mai bine decât tine  
cine ești,  
ce-ai făcut,  
ce gândești

Cu clipa clipită-n zare  
ratată  
ca orice altă mare,  
abia acum te scoli din neființă,  
te cureți de pucioasa  
închipuirii lor  
și te-mbraci în cupru,  
într-un gând,  
într-o lumină albă,  
ca o față de lună neplină  
căreia încerci să-i ghicești forma  
și umbra.)


	177. Primordial Egg (Oul Primordial)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

Shell cracks  
and you treacle  
like a shadow  
and you're off  
in face of snake unseen,  
you coil around pillar,  
sword of cleansing  
I've been and died,  
when you left I was revived,  
we don't know to wake on time,  
no, we don't know how to be.

I have come  
you haven't come  
When you've come  
I haven't come  
And I have come  
You were long gone...

(Crusta crapă  
și te-ai scurs  
ca o umbră  
și te-ai dus  
în chipul șarpelui ascuns,  
te-ai răsucit în jur de stâlp,  
sabie de curățire  
eu am fost şi am murit,  
când ai plecat eu m-am trezit,  
nu știm să fim treji la timp,  
nu, noi nu știm să mai fim.

Eu am venit  
tu n-ai venit  
Când ai venit  
eu n-am venit  
Și am venit  
Tu n-ai mai fost...)


	178. Wire (Sârmă)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

I'm through with watching you die

each night,  
watching you marry  
the wires  
around a bulb,

around a circle  
watching you deepen in void  
of hollow water

what does it taste like?

how strong is it?

I'm through with catching onto wire  
and slashing off my meat

with thought of finale with sickness  
with torment with pain with blame

I have no blame

I have no shame

I have nothing

and you only have yourself.

(M-am săturat să te văd cum mori

în fiecare noapte,  
cum te însori  
cu sârme  
în jurul unui bec,

în jurul unui cerc  
cum te cufunzi in vid  
de apă chioară

ce gust are?

cât de tare e?

m-am săturat să mă agăț de sârmă  
și să-mi sfâșii carnea de pe mine

cu gândul la final cu silă  
cu chin cu durere cu vină

n-am nicio vină

n-am nicio rușine

n-am nimic

iar tu te ai doar pe tine.)


	179. The Ticking

I think a bomb has been dropped off,  
as after the peak  
everything stopped.  
The ringing gets louder and louder,  
pops out of my brain,  
is it a phone?  
Answer it, goddamnit!  
There's no call?  
Oh, fuck.  
Yes, one more time,  
to cleanse my ears of muck  
and chime of bells,  
of walls falling  
inward;  
when I die I can finally smell air.  
All else is smog, all life  
in a fog,  
fresh breath and a jab,  
yes,  
thank you,  
let's do it again.


	180. Sleep Paralysis

Tighten the noose,  
tighter, tighter, knotted sheets  
fall out in the garden,  
the window's too high up,  
I might break a bone,  
I might  
become a ragdoll  
once the poison takes effect,  
once the machine  
is out of gas,  
once the physician  
's left the room,  
has left the station,  
the train that left  
paralysis on my mind and mouth,  
quieten the clock,  
silence the sound  
of a bumblebee searching for a flower,  
annihilate yourself:

Soft scented brain and sweet lipped breath,  
take away the pain, forfeit an impending death.


	181. Clock (Ceas)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

What has been has gone.

It is no more.

What has been was never born,  
what's been passed and died  
blindly,

like a broken bone  
whose marrow I swallow  
with thirst.

A tongue warm, humid  
pauses briefly on bent back

taken, I would say, out   
of the black  
of being, non-being in its gasp,

like an arc of clock expires  
new year's crude-cut waft,

expires death itself  
that has forgotten us.

(Ce a fost s-a dus.

Nu mai este.

Ce a fost nu s-a născut,  
ce-a fost a trecut și a murit  
orbește,

ca un os rupt  
căruia-i sorb măduva  
cu poftă.

O limba caldă, umedă  
poposește pe-un spate frânt

scos, aș zice, din mormânt  
de ființare, neființă-n al ei suflu,

ca un arc de ceas răsuflă  
aer proaspăt de an nou,

răsuflă moartea însăși  
care a uitat de noi.)


	182. Theophany

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theophany = a visible manifestation to humankind of God or a god; divine inspiration

Whisper in my ear a melody  
So I can stay inspired  
Whisper in my ear  
Sweet devil  
All my heart's desire  
Even when it's lies  
I will twist them  
And make of them my words  
To write with on a floorboard  
In a cell  
Wet and forgotten by all  
On a window  
Barred and shut like a grave  
Like twelve ribs  
Break them and you die  
Whisper in my ear  
And I'll pretend that I can hear  
And that I'm not deaf  
Like everybody else


	183. Fortune for the Obtuse

Can you move?

No.

Can you think?

Even less.

Can you live?

I suppose.

Who's to say I don't?  
You can't tell me from a board,  
stiff and sound,  
I am a wall  
and I listen to the ground  
below, it moves and you can't tell.  
It shall swallow you whole  
and you won't know it.  
Only I, numb and dumb,  
can foresee it  
and, here,  
I am undead;  
you, buried, a hyacinth  
of blind movement.


	184. The Quietus

A fist in my abdomen.

Is that a child?  
No, no, no.

It's not a child.  
It's the illusion of a child.  
It's a contusion

In the shape of a wild  
Beast,  
It is mild pain  
That takes the form of esse

In vain.

Just some flesh,  
Black and red,  
Trickles down my leg.  
It tickles me  
And I don't know  
Whether to laugh  
Or cry.


	185. In the wall

If I hit the wall  
loud enough  
and the neighbours hear,  
there might be an echo.

If I hit the wall  
hard enough,  
my hand might go through it,  
into the wires,  
and start a bonfire.

Wouldn't that be lovely?

There's nothing in the world  
I long for more  
than to burn  
from the wires  
in  
the  
wall.


	186. Erased message.

I'm so glad you called.  
No, no, I'm quite serious.  
I haven't heard from you since forever  
\- never have I heard of you, actually;  
what was your name again?  
And you say you know me  
from the words I haven't written yet,  
from the chords of your underlying steps?

Well.

You need a bigger space then  
for movement, of course,  
what else?  
That is all you do, after all.

Soon.

Soon, I hear, yet  
you never speak,  
do you?

Soon.


	187. Letter to the Undead

Give me back to me  
when you die.  
There'll be'f no use to you then,  
my empty body,  
undead and unrested.  
I shan't ever shut an eye again  
after your departure  
\- you'll have taken the dreams away  
and the nightmares.  
Shut the window, though;  
in that hour  
many souls seek solace,  
and I'm afraid I'd follow.


	188. Fix

The noises of the machine are  
sticking to my head, small  
bits of nuts cracked open  
from the fall.

I can't really think  
Oh, but can I imagine!  
\- the wheel-turn and the mock,  
the self-prescribed addiction,  
horrendous wait for a next fix,

each closer to the last,  
closer, closer,

a next dose of dead brain,  
of wasted breath, hazed  
muscle-twitch;

that is all, that is all.  
No more thoughts, that is all.


	189. Oddity

Why don't people weep  
at the sight  
of the sunset and the sunrise?  
Do they not recognize its light?  
They must, they must.  
Have they not lost themselves  
to find each other?  
Haven't they,  
not unlike the stars,  
fallen from where the sunsets come?  
And if I alone can see  
the sleepless beauty of the sea  
that carves its mirror in the dawn,  
then I'll alone in high return.

Keep your heads down  
to see your graves  
and walk the ground  
you call birthplace.


	190. Funeral Amiss

There are several people on the lane, waiting  
for the priest to show up.

Why doesn't he?  
Has he forgotten the dead?  
Or is it the living he chose to neglect?

The living stand straight, in circles  
of the cemetery's tombs  
and above them, the chapel bell sings the tune

of passing.  
The party's over, they've got better things to do

than gaze at a dead man's body  
underneath a closed casket;  
is it even there? they haven't seen it,  
not yet,  
not ever, the flesh's collapsed into itself,  
or so they said.

Wet and fat tears roll like bundles  
down their badly painted cheeks, marking  
a short and opulent grief,  
obvious in its counterfeit.

The priest never appears  
and from his home he sings a song  
to the long departed souls

of the living, blind and tall-  
standing as the mourners, when it is them  
mourned, after all.

Alas, the children suffer  
right after their ample laughter,  
and the sister's dressed in white,  
and the mother  
shuts her eye  
to the plain required lie.


	191. Newspaper

The signs of high times  
exposed in a newspaper.

The headline's blurred,  
but I can still make out the outline:

Terrorist caught and killed,  
body disposed of.

It makes me think of Marilyn  
and how she died,  
of her pentobarbital addiction  
and her love affair with JFK,  
how she wished to give away  
all his secrets,  
so he had her murdered.  
Simple.  
Yet they've never written it down  
in smal black letters for all of us to drown,  
we had to imagine the death scene  
and the assassin at the window  
and now they say she got away,  
anything, anything  
they'd say so they don't reveal the case.

And then it made me think of the towers  
and the smoke, smokescreen of truth,  
a hand in blood moved a pawn  
and the world is a chessboard.  
It made me think of the flame,   
sky-high like the trace  
of good life,  
it made me think that they must laugh,  
yes, they must,  
when they look with raw disgust  
at all them fools thinking they've got  
a fresh story and a fresh cut.

And then it made me think of you.  
It says here of your doom,  
it says of your death,  
very real and very soon,  
and then it says that you died.  
Oh, God, the idiots.  
They almost had me with that one.


	192. Maverik of Mizraim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mizraim = Egypt (Aramaic)

Oh you sullen cloths drenched  
in perfumed alcohol,  
get drunk in your own medicine,  
learn to fly  
without a wing  
or sail,  
learn to die  
and to revive  
like the crocodile  
Sobek of Egypt,  
the maverick of Mizraim,  
learn to climb on Memphis,  
learn to become Ash  
and be oasis, but  
before death and restored breath  
learn, at last, to live  
privy to the leave,  
your skin is tight  
and ready  
like a vulcano  
to errupt in all your selves  
and let them fall  
on sand  
and turn to water.


	193. Non-Simulacrum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simulacrum = unsatisfactory imitation or substitute, especially of a god (Latin); illusion

I am the crocodile of the Nile,  
the serpent seething through the vile  
lies of dying cries  
for help and for assistance,  
they know not what they are doing,  
they are reactors in passivity  
trapped, sole benefactors  
of their black-blind wrath;  
at me they send remains  
of their souls and of their brains,  
whatever idea's left their minds  
moments ago, now it is time  
to send it back, to tell them  
that they only live in lack,  
that I, even in death, own more  
of heart and of burnt breath  
in a footsole,  
in a footnote a last statement  
that my retreat's not of resentment  
but of mercy  
on my peace  
and theirs,  
but resistance  
and a small prayer.


	194. Hiraeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hiraeth = earnest longing or desire; regret or nostalgia for a home that no longer exists or never was; deep and irrational bond felt with a time, era, place or person (Welsh)

Erase me,  
erase me, darling,  
from your mind,  
the sweet smell of almonds  
a brain,  
oranges in the air  
erased  
with a razor-  
blade, I suppose it could work,  
in case you're willing to go  
through with it.

But the whiff of you is faded,  
I've forgotten it  
or at least I am trying very hard to  
and now everything is bland  
and sour  
not unlike decapitated flowers  
starting to get dry,  
starting to fall,  
starting to die.

Is this how it's going to be?  
Shall we perish  
unrooted  
and  
torn apart,  
siblings from our Mother's heart  
that once in ecstasy were saved  
and now are killed, of sun depraved,  
it this our vertigo?

Is this the way we'll go?  
Our vows, unemptied  
by reminiscent perfumes,  
sing us a song

I might be popping out of my head  
from too many thoughts  
of you, too many,  
how can I erase you?  
Wipe out my crevices  
like a white sheet  
and then I'll remember  
blank bed  
and I am back again.

Water, water,  
our sole refuge,  
The Great Escape  
from oasis burnt in the desert,  
close to the pyramids,  
even closer  
to the truth  
of the two dead sunflowers.

Our time has come;  
erase us.


	195. Futility Imprisoned

If you stare long enough at a blank wall,  
the pounding in your head might stop.

If only.

Perhaps you'll think my mind  
is just as empty  
as the wall.  
You'd be dreadfully wrong.

My mind is full, filled  
with the sense I've given you,  
your words,  
senselessly adorned  
on my brain's dull decor,  
or so they seem.  
I appear so very tempting,  
numbed and dumbed,  
in their inconsistent dreams,  
yet I disappoint  
once again,  
I'm afraid I am too smart  
and too hurt  
to be an innocent.


	196. Mr. Melrose

No one understands Mr. Melrose  
and his ways.  
He stays recluse with a scarf over his face,  
he never shows his eyes  
\- says they're soul's doorways -  
they talk of his demise,  
yet I see him every day  
I pass the mansion's gates  
closed, what a surprise,  
he never lets people inside,  
not even when he needs them  
to alleviate his cries  
of pain.

Mr. Melrose, how are you doing?  
I've been calling you for many months,  
you yourself had given me the number,  
and now you don't bother to answer;  
what seems to be the problem?

But Mr. Melrose never replies,  
he calls to tell me of the great price  
he has to pay for staying alive,  
he sings in voice three times modified,  
and even if I manage it to recognize,  
another how appears, and oh so many whys.

No one understands Mr. Melrose.  
Not even I.


	197. Innermost

So the little spark of indigo  
has learnt how to talk.  
It whispers in my ear  
close to every dawn  
a secret, known by naught  
but by its light  
hidden in the shade.  
So the little spark speaks  
slowly, so I can see  
its meaning.  
Each time I hear it, I say 'No.'  
'No, it cannot be so.  
You must be wrong.  
If that's the man, I must find flaw.  
If that's the fraud, I must find law.  
You can never be right.'  
I know my death shall come  
from my mind alone,  
never from my indigo,  
as I'm a fool  
that knows not how to listen.


	198. Kaleidoscope

The woods look promising  
in vague shades of blue and green,  
a hue of resonance,  
nothing seen,  
the feeling's chaste,  
I chase it  
and end up getting caught.  
And all has been for naught,  
as now the life pursued  
is vowed for silence,  
and I can no longer keep us quiet.  
We scream  
like the animals we know to be,  
with cannibalistic tendencies,  
we eat each other  
out in the dark,  
it can be seen as art  
if you look deep enough  
in the forest  
to find us.


	199. Double Vision

I have seen you yesterday at the store.

Oh, it wasn't me.

It wasn't you?

No.

Who was it?

Some body I chose.

You choose bodies?

Of course. Don't you?

No, I'm afraid not.  
So how do you choose them?

Well, they first need to be dead  
inside, at least, so they can replace me  
in places I don't want to be.

At least?

Yes. When I feel like it,  
I choose someone already dead,  
a corpse of me with other's head,  
and I fake my death instead.

Very interesting.

Indeed.


	200. To the Dream

You are not dead.  
Not after the gravity of  
the fall, collapse of a curtain  
call, not after the ecstasy of youth  
lost, rejuvinated in a great cost,  
no after in the silence, I hear no  
words spoken, but I can see.  
What semblence of a difference  
between you and I can you imagine,  
sole heart makes way in soul's brain,  
giveaway to give pain away,  
to blend it into a body,  
into an art,  
conjunction of two stars, celestial at last,  
to take love from your love and take it apart,  
to see it as two parts, to part it, to feel,  
to fast your path through a return, no,  
to must as a sensation of life, rejubilation  
in reborn ash, new-born moon  
blue as the dust, the dust, remains  
of a song, are you listening?  
of a song, are you listening?  
of a song, are you listening?  
The strange behaviour of your doom, of star  
rays shooting in my eyes,  
they blind them, ridiculous disguise  
of indifference to all the noise and all the lies  
of after, of mirage  
in mirrors and the whys  
of the poor souls who prefer to dine  
on black and white letters, papers  
burning up in a fireplace somewhere,  
I might have had the lighter  
as to light my proof of you,  
as proof of life in impossible surprise,  
serendipity for the few,  
as proof of raw contempt in a fashionable sense,  
a show, applause rows  
are given in blissed awes,  
As proof aloneness of I  
who never thought would learn to die.


	201. Hallowed Price, Hollow Prize

Whatever remains is a farce  
to prefer a misused face to your own  
to prefer to lie  
on your back and crack it in a bathtub  
to prefer to fight the system  
like the original maverick  
like the unknown snake  
misunderstood  
to prefer to leave aside  
our bodies  
our cries  
when joy makes way for hollers  
be prepared  
i need assistance in the shed  
of love, it is ripping me apart  
at the seams, I might be breaking  
I might have won  
Substitute for a desire  
no one cares for  
no one's here for  
no one  
at all  
how will I manage to catch myself by the leg  
to prevent a fall  
again, again, again,  
how will I go home  
to a house emptied of its soul  
this room is a haunted room  
this chair is an old chair  
and all needs to be replaced  
my skin, my lips, my hair,  
tear them apart and I'll show you  
the vacuumed look of a heart  
pumping for life and dancing for art  
dying alone, dying alone, dying alone,  
rather than living in an abandoned home  
invasion of the varmints  
searching for a bone, for a corpse  
and finding none.


	202. Misplacement

There was a commotion in the room next door  
I believe someone called an ambulance  
But its siren calls for a different room  
In a different house, unrented home  
But nobody's there  
The caller sounds afraid  
I can hear him  
He gives them an adress  
I want to go next door and help  
But they won't let me  
High-pitched voice says there's no need  
The doctor's already here  
He doesn't know what CPR is  
He's just doing his job  
He's just murdering his patient  
From this room in another room  
The patient they picked up in an ambulance  
Unrecognizable   
They say he died at the hospital  
They made an autopsy and found him dead  
They found him bald and little  
Filled with propofol  
To keep him frozen  
To keep him still  
Perhaps he'll come alive  
From another body  
From the ashes  
From an unnamed tomb  
From a closed casket  
Perhaps they all laugh because it's just so funny  
I've been worrying over nothing  
There's nothing wrong here  
They just have the wrong person.


	203. Curious

The curious case of a wall  
you talk to it and it responds  
impenetrable  
yet it recalls  
all you did and didn't do  
It considers you a fool  
for trusting bits and pieces of the clues  
left behind  
by a rat in a hole  
by a mole  
infiltrated  
in your mission  
Is it false or is it true  
this condition that you use  
to present facts and resent lies  
to have them all categorized  
the roles  
the disguises  
the walls  
the houses  
How do you know so much  
how do you know  
how  
and the walls keep silent now  
they're afraid you might be right


	204. Desire to Move

How would you know of me  
but from your dreams, just as I dream  
of you sometime,  
just as I, sometimes,  
dream of your thighs  
on mine,  
impossible delights, I know,  
just as I am nearly nigh,  
nearly yours,  
but not so much  
as you are mine  
but only when it is night;  
during the day we live in fright,  
during the day we hide  
and as the spheres in sky collide  
whenever love is out of sight,  
during the day we hide  
so that our meat can meet at night.


	205. 21 Days

Give me some time  
away, away, away,  
afar from the sunrays,  
give me some hours,  
give me three weeks, let's say  
that I will manage it,  
that the minute is terminal  
only in your mind,  
believe me there's no time,  
believe me  
and run, run, run  
where your core guides you,  
where your mind leaves you  
alone, alone, alone,  
just as I am  
in death, alone,  
give me some days,  
just twenty-one,  
and it will be finished,  
I promise you.

What will?  
Your death  
or  
your life?


	206. Strange Woman

They foretold rain this afternoon,  
yet there's no drop in sight, no  
shade cast by the noon-light, reflected in a cloud, I fear  
that I am not here  
where I am supposed to be.  
Choir of angels sing  
for a long departed king,  
his subjects though know to smile  
and to weep when it's the time,  
when he tells them to, from beyond  
the empty golden tomb, adorned.  
The golden hair upon a head,  
black glasses a chance to covet,  
you seem so obscure,  
so ridiculous, so unsure  
of how to act,  
not unlike a statue,  
and a man keeps looking at you,  
a man in a hat and a suit  
out of place with his odd face;  
I wonder if it's you or him  
whose funeral I'm attending;  
I wonder if that's what people say about me too.  
But that was the point, I assume,  
as I can't help it;  
I steal glances at you  
and I know I'll be caught  
and doomed  
to forever chase a ghoul.  
The casket, already forgotten, enters the ground,  
yet here you are, always the martyr, safe and sound.


	207. Name of the Game

I need something to distract me from the atrocity of myself.  
I need a line, I need a space, I need a time  
where no one knows my face,  
I need a colour that people will be blind to,  
I need a murder  
to get me out of here,  
I need them all to hearken  
to what I have to say and do  
whatever I tell them to.  
I need you to understand  
first and point second,  
I need you to laugh before you whimper,  
because it's all so very simple  
if you know just how to listen,  
if you know I've escaped prison,  
then you'll die of laughter  
in the end.  
I need you to smile so that I'm reminded  
why I did this in the first place,  
for how else do we play the game  
if not by changing names.  
So,  
do you play?


	208. Insatiable

Contingencies are lost over time,  
you say time is false, yet in it we're lost,  
we lose so we can choose our punishment,  
so we can be free in unsatisfied victory,  
so we can relapse when we forget how it is to be  
satiated, such a mystery.  
I am impatient, I cannot wait for you to finish  
whatever this is, I need it rewound  
like a vinyl record, again again again,  
as what you give me is never enough,  
there's always room for more  
life, more death, more reward or punishment,  
just more more more, until our bubble bursts  
and we are gone gone gone.


	209. Dear Detective

Dear Detective,

You think you know so much.  
You think, perhaps, that all is such  
like a mystery novel.  
Perhaps you might be right.  
The world is a stage which I enjoy filling  
with questions that you fail to ask,  
the world is a page which I enjoy spilling  
to the press that fail to bask.  
The world is a cage  
which I intend to escape.  
Do you think, I wonder,  
that I won't leave some scrapes  
for you to chase?  
Ha!  
But you are so naïve  
to guess that I'm passive  
and that all the words to leave my mouth  
are simply tales and slips  
\- dearest, they are lines  
that you are yet to read.  
Have you never heard of role-play?  
Do me a favour - be my one saviour  
and do as I say;  
I see you can't make it any other way.


	210. Ricochet

Your face adorns such sweet conceit  
of sensuous deceit

May I touch it?  
It might split and slip  
such as

Permanent delays  
of cracked glacier  
see-through and near  
but buried deep

In a tender ricochet  
into butterflies' feet  
cradling your cheek

Have you missed me?  
\- Like a bullet.


	211. Reason for Mankind

Lord,  
why are we here?

Are we here to pretend  
when they ask us questions,  
Are we here to defend  
our historical position,  
Are we here to resent  
those that feed us fiction,  
Are we here to repent  
at the feet of civilization?

Or are we here to protest?  
Are we here to forgive?  
Are we here to digest  
what they're willing to give?

Lord,  
are we here to cry?  
When they hate us,  
are we to oblige?  
Should we instead abide  
when they're throwing stones  
and be silent till they condone?

Lord,

Are we here to die?


	212. Cigarettes for the Cancerous Needs

Plant some weeds  
into my eye sockets,  
pull some cigs  
out of my pants' pocket,  
correct your posture  
when you drag your addiction  
from overused filter,  
the pack's empty  
and I haven't had a taste  
out of your mouth,  
out of your teeth,  
I thought you disliked the smell  
of ash  
and of remains,  
I suppose I could be wrong,  
I suppose I might be blind  
from the thorns you kissed into my eyes,  
because what I see's a last ember  
to covet your missed guise  
and I suddenly desire to burn,  
let it burn out.


	213. The Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Edvard Munch's painting "The Kiss"

They say in Munch's "Kiss"  
the man and woman become one  
indistinguishable  
from each other.  
But I say the man  
wants to devour her  
and eat her tongue  
and teeth,  
he wants to pull them one by one  
to satisfy his needs,  
as he requires her remains  
for his hot flesh to live,  
he requires her skin  
and that's all this is to him,  
the kiss.


	214. Bed of Leaves

We are alone  
yet we know not what this is  
this quivering solace  
we know not what to expect  
from the leaves that conceal us  
we know not the ground  
we have been laid upon  
estranged from the sound  
of a joyous new-born  
we are alone  
and in our solitude  
crass and fragile  
as a smudged written leaf  
we dress in white for funerals  
we laugh when we're to weep  
we then meet like animals  
and in soil we bury deep  
the denial  
of all that is left  
a farce  
made up of scripts and cripts  
scarce  
we confuse our souls with coals  
that are meant to burn out  
and dissappear  
and we're invisible  
there's naught for us to fear  
(but for the soul)  
there's no more to conceal  
(but for the soul)


	215. The Filter

It is so easy to tell when people lie.  
But when they tell the truth  
which words survive?  
It is not unlike the tale of the snake in the river.  
The serpent slithers  
and spits its venom,  
whoever drinks the water dies,  
and yet you never know  
whether it's the poison or the medicine inside,  
as the snake is subtle and duplicit,  
and whether the deaths were of murder  
or of dread  
\- it never is explicit.


	216. Beholder

He has taken you out of yourself  
He put you in a vase  
You now need him to survive  
To water your roots  
To keep you alive  
As long as his mood allows  
Until the boredom strikes  
A fraction in your beauty  
Until you become bland in his eyes  
And he searches for some other flower  
To stay in vase instead  
Then he'll cut your head.


	217. The Apple

I woke up today and chose stupidity.  
They gave me an apple and said "Eat it."  
I asked them "What is it?"  
Then one man stood up with his hair slicked,  
He pointed his hand at me and asked "Lick."  
His finger tasted of apple juice.  
Today I woke up and could still feel it  
In my mouth.  
It must've been an impressive finger.  
They gathered around me again  
And screamed at me "Shout!"  
I shouted "What?"  
They said "It is you."  
I asked "Am I that?"  
The same man gave me an answer: "Chew."  
I chewed on his sandals and smelled his feet.  
At the end I woke up  
And was still in my bed  
Wrapped in my wet sheets.


	218. Woodpecker

The sounds are still here  
In the mud  
High-heels clicking  
They're stuck to the ground  
Woodpecker pecking the air  
It has arrived on my doorstep  
I can't get it out  
My shoes won't let me walk  
If I move I'm bound to fall  
And break a leg  
This is no theatre though  
I don't need the pain  
I dispise the blow  
But the sounds are still here  
And I'm afraid of what follows  
The aftersound is silent  
And it deafens me.


	219. Unnecessary

There is a beautiful jay bird outside your window.  
Do you see it?  
Open the frame  
and let it in.  
Let it sing  
and then take it in your hand.  
Now squash its neck and break it.  
Why?  
No reason in particular.  
Just to watch it die.


	220. Surrender at Night

How long will you keep it up,  
the tortuous defense,  
how long till the time's up?  
I'm still in my bed  
waiting for a quick end,  
there's naught here to defend,  
Will you not just leave??  
Stop looking in my eyes  
and kill kill kill  
the last resistence in my will,  
take whatever you can get  
if there's anything left.


	221. Shoutout to the Last Lunatic

Wait for me when you get there,  
on the dark side of the moon.  
I myself know I'll forget me  
in the shadows somewhere,  
and all will be lost.  
Wait for me when you pass  
the tainted kaleidoscope glass  
and have sight of the cost.  
I will be standing by  
watching people lose their lives  
in struggles to raise their voice  
and when asked, to make a choice,  
I will leave myself behind to see them,  
and, finally, to kill them  
with lunacy, the intuitive skill  
of hard-drive in a treadmill.  
Wait for me as I catch up,  
I am done with them,  
the time is up.


	222. Don't Let It Fool You

Rain, have mercy on my soul!  
Don't you see it soiled,  
Slipping through the foil  
Of masks?  
Don't wash it away, the pain is clear,  
Sharp, it obliterates concern,  
The asphyxiation is welcomed,  
It annihilated the turn  
Of blade between ribs.  
The streets seem empty, yet in the corners  
Lurk the beggars, their chant  
Chains like coins, they ask  
For a reprieve,  
Don't you hear them?  
You've washed away their voice  
And now the silence deafens me  
With the infuriating price  
Of the storm's ambush,  
Grey and hollow,  
Grey and hollow,  
And the howls of dogs are all that follows,  
They're the only ones left,  
They still know how to speak.  
And they're rabid, ready to burn  
With biting teeth, ready to hurl  
And take away my soul,  
But I won't let them.  
Their ears are sharper than mine, their eyes  
More furious than I,  
But their mouths tell lies,  
And lies are weak, as you well know.  
Their monstrosities are decor  
To the untamed flame of hell,  
It is waiting for them,  
And I'll be waiting as well.


	223. Compass (Cumpăt)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in Romanian, later translated into English

I found your words this morning on the table;  
you left them for breakfast,  
to eat them with a knife,  
to dissect them and to wish you  
Wellcome.  
You are a fool;  
in your foolishness you think yourself a dead,  
you think yourself some result  
rich of self-being,  
but I tell you I'm the same as you,  
just as imagination,  
just as misunderstanding,  
as ahead of the world,  
just as collection of empty pages that only you can see.  
Nature's dead,  
but you're alive  
and it seems absurd to me.  
I choked on wine  
when I wound up home,  
I took my shoes off and washed off them  
the red,  
I tumbled on a pillow  
and looked out the window  
waiting for a haze  
to blow away my mind-maze,

forgive me

forgive me  
forgive me

for not being able of more,  
for waiting you in profound thought,  
the deepest aspect of life is death  
and I don't want it;  
I have so much more to say.

(Ți-am găsit cuvintele azi-dimineață pe masă;  
le-ai lăsat ca mic-dejun,  
să le mănânc c-un cuțit,  
să le disec și să-ți zic  
Bine ai venit.  
Ești un nărod;  
în nărozenia ta te crezi un mort,  
te crezi vreun rod  
bogat al auto-ființării,  
dar eu îți spun ca sunt la fel ca tine,  
la fel de închipuire,  
la fel de neînțeles,  
de înaintea lumii,  
la fel de culegere de pagini goale pe care numai tu le vezi.  
Natura-i moartă,  
dar tu trăiești  
și mi se pare absurd.  
M-am înecat cu vin  
când am venit acasă,  
m-am descălțat și mi-am spălat pantofii  
de roșeață,  
m-am rostogolit pe-o pernă  
și-am privit afară  
așteptând o ceață  
care să-mi zboare mintea-mprăștiată,

iartă-mă

iartă-mă  
iartă-mă

că nu pot mai mult,  
că te-aștept în gând profund,  
cel mai adânc aspect al vieții este moartea  
și eu nu o vreau;  
mai am așa multe de spus.)


	224. The Savages

Don't mind them.  
They are just savages that like to chew.  
That's all they know.  
Throw them a bone  
and they'll bite off your hand.  
They won't listen to command,  
they are futile in this regard  
\- but give them a heart  
to see what happens;  
I'm telling you, they'll give it back.  
They'll say to you, "Rascal!  
Hear us and dare not speak  
from manholes with words too deep,  
no one with a brain can believe you,  
and if they do, then they are meak.  
Idiots! Stop complaining about fury,  
ours is great before the jury,  
you are condemned  
for atrocious redemption,  
you better deal with it  
and pay attention.  
We are the beasts you fear  
not for our monstrosity  
but for your reflected sin.  
If we chew and spit you,  
it is to make you clean."  
Yes, don't mind the savages.  
Ignore them, and see where that gets you.


	225. A Note Came to Shore

My love  
wrote me a note  
saying

"I have to go."

Nothing more, words, only four,  
and he went.  
Later he said  
through a messenger now dead

"I'm lost;  
please send for me."

But I've not yet found myself,  
and my lips are sewn,  
what other use've I alone?  
My feet's trails've been washed away,  
the blood shed, swallowed by a wave.  
A gunshot loud and clear  
buzzes by my ear  
telling me to Wake up!  
It all has been a dream.  
When I open my eyes,  
the note lays crumpled in the sea,  
the red steals what tides bring  
and hides it where you're hidden.

"I'm lost;  
please send for me."


	226. To the Beloved

The world is worlds behind us  
Only the sea comprehends  
The vast seams of waves gliding  
Over the skin of you, the tame  
Never enduring, but in the same  
Resistance, to keep inside your mouth  
And with your teeth to speak just lies  
Your marrow's loaded  
With weights of duty and rebellion  
Your spine is crushed by rocks  
You've thrown your body'n water  
And let yourself get sunk  
Sharks shall bask in bones  
Tides will swallow moans  
And you'll remain quiet  
At last, you shall cease  
To exist  
For yourself, perhaps  
As only you're here left  
For me, and I'm long lost and gone  
(The sea shall take us all)


	227. The Hollow Ring

Beware Beware  
The hollow ring,  
If you see it on my finger, step away.  
Go to sleep and I shall follow,  
Says I in a voice that rings hollow,  
Yet not once you blink, you poor fool,  
I've waited so long you in to do.  
As rascal tore my flesh,  
His own glistening with sweat,  
He only came at night  
With a cane to rip me apart,  
Beware Beware, you Rascal!,  
My hollow ring, it fills your skull  
With terror when you breathe, tremors when you don't,  
And shall you ever care for a drink,  
I am yours here to fetch it.  
Kill it, kill it, what remains  
Of the last drop of innocence, spill it  
Onto the sheets, once clean,  
Kill it, kill it, and then  
Kiss it, kiss it,  
My lip, I do not own it.


	228. Mosaic Museum

The silver sliver snaps  
Distortion is rebound  
Get back!  
What are you running from?  
When you die you exist the most  
When you see  
Do you see?  
Do you even  
Care?  
Damn you  
To Hell  
My darling rotten beau  
Fuck you  
And your insolent pretense  
You come  
And then you scream  
It's your fault!  
You dream  
Of repentance  
Oh how amusing  
There's no such thing  
Only the penance  
Only the waiting  
In an empty hallway  
Below the clouds above the doorway  
Killing time  
Gaining loss  
Killing love  
And all that's cost us  
When I see you I want to rip your face off  
And wear it as my own  
Replace it and then swallow  
Your smile  
Still there  
In putrefaction bare  
Teeth yellow from a smoke  
Or two or ten  
Whitened with artificial floss  
When I die I am the most  
Kill me then  
In the hall  
That's my reward  
For being so very patient  
My dear.


End file.
